UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 


V? 


rrrr     %* 


NATURE    AND    LIFE 


S  E  R  M  0  N  S 


ROBERT     COLLYER 

PASTOR  OF  CNITT  CHURCH,   CHICAGO. 


FOURTH   EDITION. 


BOSTON: 
HORACE    B.     FULLER, 

SUCCESSOR    TO    WALKER,    FILLER,    &    CO.,   245,    WASHINGTON    BTBBBT 

Chicago  :  John'  R.  Walsh. 
1867. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1867,  by 

HORACE  B.  PULLER, 

fn  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts 


Cambridge: 

ptereotyted    and    printer    by 

john  wilson  and  son. 


fe 
* 


NAHOR   AUGUSTUS    STAPLES, 

NOW    IN    HEAVEN, 

Cfjis  JSooft 

IS    DEDICATED    AS   A   TOKEN    OP 
UNDYING   LOVE. 


4 J  I   «>,-■ 


PREFACE. 


I  let  this  little  book  go  out  into  the  world, 
feeling  almost  as  if  it  were  one  of  my  children. 
I  cannot  be  indifferent  to  its  reception,  because  I 
love  it.  So  I  trust  it  will  be  welcome  wherever 
it  goes,  —  that  friends  will  be  glad  to  see  it  for 
my  sake,  and  strangers  for  its  own.  If  it  should 
be  blessed  with  a  long  life,  I  shall  rejoice  greatly ; 
but,  if  it  die  early,  I  shall  still  be  glad  it  was 
born. 

R.  C. 

May  20,  1867. 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

I.    Root  and  Flower 1 

,     II.     What  a  Leaf- Said 23 

III.  The  Treasures  of  the  Snow 43 

IV.  Light  on  a  Hidden  Way 61 

V.    The  Folly  of  Solomon 83 

VI.    Faith 102 

VII.    Hope 119 

VIII.    Love 139 

IX.    Ascending  and  Descending  Angels 161 

X.    The  Fear  of  God 178 

XI.    A  Talk  to  Mothers 198 

XII.    Healing  and  Hurting  Shadows 216 

XIII.  The  Hither  Side 236 

XIV.  The  Book  of  Psalms 256 

XV.    The  Battle-field  of  Fort  Donelson 274 

XVI.    Omega 296 


SERMONS. 


I. 

ROOT    AND    FLOWER. 

John  xii.  Sso-25 :  "  And  there  were  certain  Greeks  among  them  that 
came  up  to  worship  at  the  feast.  The  same  came  therefore  to 
Philip,  which  was  of  Bethsaida  of  Galilee,  and  desired  him,  say- 
ing, Sir,  we  would  see  Jesus.  Philip  cometh  and  telleth  Andrew: 
and  again,  Andrew  and  Philip  tell  Jesus.  And  Jesus  answered 
them,  saying,  The  hour  is  come  that  the  Son  of  man  should  be 
glorified.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Except  a  corn  of  wheat 
fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abideth  alone :  but,  if  it  die,  it 
bringeth  forth  much  fruit.  He  that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it, 
and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it  unto  life 
eternal." 

I  went  once,  iii  the  last  days  of  June,  to  see  an 
old  friend  in  the  country,  who  has  consecrated 
his  life  to  trees  and  flowers.  When  I  came  away, 
he  gave  me  something  wrapped  in  a  piece  of 
paper,  bidding  me  select  the  best  spot  in  my  gar- 
den, when  I  got  home,  and  plant  it.  "  For,"  he 
added,  "  that  is  a  very  choice  flower,  sir,  —  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  things  you  ever  saw  in  your 
l 


2  ROOT   AND    FLOWER. 

life."  I  left  my  friend,  and  started  home ;  and, 
when  I  had  got  well  out  of  his  sight,  }f  course 
I  undid  the  paper,  that  I  might  look  at  my  trea- 
sure. It  was  as  queer,  unpromising  a  thing  to 
look  at,  as  I  ever  saw.  At  the  first  glance,  you 
would  take  it  for  a  poor,  haggard  old  onion. 
There  was  not  a  speck  of  beauty  about  it,  that 
I  should  desire  it.  Then  I  put  my  flower  back 
into  the  paper,  brought  it  home,  and  planted  it 
just  as  I  was  directed ;  and  when  I  had  done  this, 
I  began  to  ponder  and  wonder  over  this  great 
mystery  of  planting  and  growing  and  flowering. 
I  said  to  myself,  —  "What  are  my  conceptions 
of  what  is  to  come  out  of  my  dark,  forbidding 
bulb  ?  I  never  saw  the  flower,  I  suppose,  in  my 
life.  I  have  no  certain  idea  what  it  is  like.  It 
may  resemble  a  sunflower  or  a  peony  or  a  daisy 
or  a  bluebell.  If  I  carry  a  single  tooth  pried  out 
of  the  limestone  to  Professor  Owen,  he  will  sketch 
me  an  outline  of  the  animal  that  used  it,  though 
this  be  tl*e  first  fragment  ever  seen  of  a  thing 
that  died  out  ten  thousand  years  before  the  first 
man.  But  I  may  carry  a  fragment  of  this  root 
to  the  Owen  of  plants,  if  there  be  one,  and 
ask  him  to  search  in  it  for  the  flower ;    and  I 


ROOT   AND    FLOWER.  3 

suppose  he  must  fail  to  tell  me  what  it  will  be, 
because  there  seems  to  be  no  possible  link  be- 
tween the  bare  grain  and  the  body  as  it  pleases 
God.  And  then  this  choicest  spot  in  the  garden, 
—  what  did  my  friend  mean  by  that  ?  If  I  under- 
stand him,  he  meant  a  place  of  the  strongest  pos- 
sible contrasts,  —  a  place  bare  to  the  sun  and 
the  night  and  the  wind  and  the  rain ;  where  I 
had  gathered  the  heaviest  proportion  of  shard, 
refuse,  and  decay ;  a  place  where  life  has  to  do 
battle  with  darkness  and  death,  and  to  draw  from 
them  its  richest  elements  of  beauty  and  perfume. 
And  then  what  have  I  done  ?  My  friend  gave  me 
this  flower,  as  he  called  it,  folded  carefully  as  if  it 
were  a  jewel  of  price ;  and,  carefully  as  he  gave 
it,  I  brought  it  home.  But,  when  I  got  home,  I 
put  it  down  into  this  grim  earth,  this  fragment  of 
the  measureless  waste  of  land,  and  left  it  there. 
Had  I  not  better  keep  it  in  some  safe  casket,  or 
fold  it  to  my  heart,  until  I  see  the  beauty  that 
my  friend  has  promised  ?  Is  it  possible,  —  is  it 
indispensable  in  that  will  of  God  which  I  have 
been  taught  to  call  the  order  of  nature,  that  the 
only  way  to  come  at  the  beauty  and  glory  is  that 
it  shall  be  put  away  and  buried  out  of  my  sight  ? 


4  EOOT   AND   FLOWER. 

Can  it  be  true,  that  the  way  to  find  what  I  want 
is  to  lose  it ;  that  the  transcendent  form  and  color 
and  perfume  of  August  must  depend  upon  the 
decay  of  June  ?  " 

Well,  friends,  these  are  some  of  the  hinted 
questionings  that  whispered  themselves  out  of 
my  poor  dry  root,  and  I  could  give  them  but 
one  answer  ;  namely,  "  These  seeming  contra- 
dictions are  only  so  because  I  do  not  know 
enough.  And  I  can  only  know  as  I  walk  by 
faith ;  for  faith,  above  all  things,  makes  the  dis- 
cords of  the  present  the  harmonies  of  the  future." 

It  is  one  of  the  many  curious  things  that  look 
out  at  us  from  almost  every  page  of  the  Gospels, 
to  assure  us  that  the  Gospels  themselves  are  sub- 
stantially fragments  out  of  the  real  life  and  times 
of  Jesus  Christ,  —  that  these  men,  who  had  come 
to  the  feast  at  Jerusalem  and  requested  to  see 
Jesus,  should  be  Greeks,  at  that  time  probably 
the  most  inquisitive  and  newsy  race  on  the  earth. 
They  had  come,  I  presume,  from  Corinth  or  Eph- 
rsus  ;  and,  when  they  went  back  home,  the  first 
question  would  be,  "  What's  the  news  ?  "  Now, 
the  news  was  Jesus  ;  his  name  and  fame  had  gone 
out  into  all  Jewry.     He  was  just  then  the  com- 


ROOT   AND   FLOWER.  5 

mon  subject  of  discussion  in  the  city  gates  and 
synagogues  ;  and  it  would  be  a  great  thing  for 
them,  when  they  got  back  home,  to  say,  "  "We 
have  seen  Jesus,  and  talked  with  him."  And  the 
answer  of  Christ  to  their  request,  though  it  seems 
at  the  first  glance  to  be  no  answer  at  all,  touches 
the  very  heart  of  all  such  question  and  answer, 
and  is,  beside  that,  a  beautiful  instance  of  the 
rich,  transcendental  nature  of  this  Son  of  God  : 
"  Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and 
die,  it  abidcth  alone ;  but,  if  it  die,  it  bringeth 
forth  much  fruit."  As  if  he  would  say,  "  These 
men  want  to  see  me.  What  can  they  gain  by 
that  ?  There  is  nothing  to  see  in  me.  If  they 
want  to  see  me,  they  must  wait  until  I  go  away, 
and  the  world  sees  me  no  more.  What  they  will 
see  is  not  me.  The  root  is  not  the  flower.  This 
common,  foot-sore  man,  with  this  poor,  brown 
face,  so  thin  and  worn  that  men  think  I  may 
be  nearly  fifty,  while  I  am  still  but  thirty,  —  what 
can  I  be  to  men  whose  ideal  is  Apollo  ?  I  can- 
not sing  with  Homer ;  I  cannot  speculate  with 
Plato ;  I  cannot  unloose  the  seals  with  Euclid,  or 
bear  men  on  the  mighty  tides  of  eloquence  with 
Demosthenes.     Phidias  made  the  marble  speak ; 


b  EOOT   AND   FLOWER. 

Apelles  made  the  canvas  glow  ;  I  made  ploughs 
and  carts  and  ox-yokes  and  stools.  They  cannot 
see  me.  My  simple  words  about  God  and  man, 
and  duty  and  destiny,  would  be  foolishness  to 
them.  Let  them  wait  until  the  world  burns  with 
the  lustre  of  what  is  sprung  out  of  me.  When  I 
have  risen  and  stand  with  the  martyr  in  the  fire ; 
when  I  shine  in  the  catacombs  until  there  is  no 
need  of  the  sun ;  when  I  have  whispered  my 
comfort  and  confidence  to  millions  of  desolate 
souls,  who  are  now,  and  will  be  looking  at  what 
seems  to  them  the  fearful  vacancy  of  the  here- 
after ;  when  I  have  created  new  homes  for  purity 
and  peace  to  dwell  in,  and  brought  men  and 
women  and  children  back  to  the  Divine  will ; 
when  the  love  and  truth  and  self-sacrifice  of  which 
God  has  made  me,  though  I  seem  but  a  poor 
peasant,  shall  have  done  what  all  the  genius  of  all 
the  ages  has  failed  to  do ;  when  I  have  hushed 
the  fevered  heart  of  the  world  to  rest,  and  quick- 
ened it  into  a  new  life,  —  then  they  can  see  me. 
But  I  must  die  to  live.  The  burial  comes,  then 
the  resurrection.  I  must  be  absent  as  a  root, 
or  I  can  never  be  present  as  a  flower." 

Such,  as  I  understand  it,  is  the  meaning  folded, 


ROOT   AND   FLOWER.  7 

not  only  in  my  text,  but  also  in  the  richest  life  of 
the  world.  Just  as  this  most  celestial  soul  was 
folded  in  a  life  about  which  there  is  a  very  early 
application  of  those  old  prophecies  of  some  chosen 
one  who  should  be  as  a  root  out  of  a  dry  ground, 
whose  face  should  be  marred  more  than  that  of 
any  man,  who  should  have  no  form  nor  comeli- 
ness in  him,  so  that,  when  men  saw  him,  there 
should  be  no  beauty  that  they  should  desire  him ; 
and  as  God  cast  him,  so  folded,  into  the  place 
which,  of  all  others  at  that  time,  held  the  heavi- 
est proportion  of  shard  and  refuse  hastening  to 
decay,  —  cast  him  into  that  place  as  the  choicest 
spot  in  the  garden  of  the  world,  and  then,  by 
sunlight  and  darkness  and  dryness  and  rain 
and  life  and  death,  wrought  out  his  purpose, 
until  the  flower  came  up,  in  the  full  time,  to  fill 
the  world  with  wonder  and  blessing,  —  so  it  will 
be  with  God's  best  blossom  and  fruit  for  ever  and 
ever. 

The  world  bends  with  infinite  tenderness  over 
the  story  of  that  woman  who  had  no  beauty  and 
no  blessing,  out  on  the  Yorkshire  moors.  "We 
pity  her  for  the  dismal,  scranny  school  of  her 
childhood,  where  food  for  the  outer  and  the  inner 


8  ROOT  AND   FLOWER. 

life  was  alike  hard  and  crusty  and  mouldy.  We 
pity  her  for  the  lonely  drudgery,  so  hapless  and 
so  hopeless,  out  in  Brussels,  as  we  see  her  sit 
down  to  it,  while  her  wings  bleed  beating  the 
bars  of  her  cage,  and  the  music  soars  within 
her,  — 

"  And  the  life  still  drags  her  downward 
To  its  level,  day  by  day,  — 
What  is  fine  within  her  growing 
Coarse  to  sympathetic  clay." 

Our  lips  tremble  as  we  see  that  striving  after 
some  touch  of  grace  and  beauty  to  deck  the  hard, 
gray  home,  though  it  embody  itself  in  no  better 
tiling  than  a  bright  little  frock  and  a  pair  of  tiny 
red  shoes  ;  yet  to  sec  the  poor  blossom  of  grace 
and  beauty  shrivelling  in  the  fire,  put  there  and 
held  there  by  a  father  harder  than  the  home. 
"We  watch  her,  a  woman  while  yet  a  child, 
—  a  woman,  because  other  little. children,  still 
more  helpless,  are  motherless,  and  can  find  no 
other  nature  large  enough  to  take  them  in  and 
.indcrstaiid  and  adopt  them  ;  a  sister  in  all  sweet, 
ingenuous,  simple  ways ;  a  mother  in  all  wise, 
overbending  care  and  love ;  and  then,  at  last,  a 
woman  grown,  walking  over  great  stretches  of 
wild  country,  that  she  might  be  alone  with  that 


ROOT   AND    FLOWER.  9 

other  Father  and  Mother,  the  Father  and  Mother 
of  us  all,  and  gather  strength  and  courage  from 
the  communion,  to  go  back  and  bear  her  burden 
of  a  stern,  half-mad  father,  and  a  reckless,  lost 
brother,  and  a  bare,  rugged  life;  then  we  say, 
"Oh!  why  was  not  such  a  soul  clothed  in  the 
beauty  of  Juno,  and  born  in  the  vale  of  Tempe, 
in  the  golden  days,  the  first-born  and  nurs- 
ling of  a  queen  ?  "  But  we  say  this  no  longer 
when  the  flower  unfolds  to  the  sun,  —  when  her 
books  and  her  life,  in  all  their  variant  strength 
and  fulness,  reveal  the  mystery  of  the  homely 
enfolding,  the  rank,  sharp  contrasts  of  the 
garden-plat  and  the  hot  days  and  dark  nights  ; 
for  we  see  in  the  flower  brimming  with  refresh- 
ment and  blessing  to  thousands,  how  not  to  the 
beauty  of  the  goddess,  not  to  the  flowery  mead- 
ows and  bosky  dells  of  Arcadia,  not  to  the  first- 
born and  nursling  of  a  queen,  could  this  power 
come  ;  but  to  such  a  soul,  set  in  such  a  place,  to 
battle  through  and  gather  all  the  influences  of 
such  a  life. 

And   so,  again,  dear,  quaint,  loving   Charles 
Lamb  flowered  out  of  the  sharp  contrasts  of  Fleet 
Street  and  the  South-sea  House,  and  that  other 
l* 


10  BOOT   AND   FLOWER. 

influence  and  element  of  bitterness  almost  too 
terrible  to  mention.  No  man  who  has  been 
touched  by  the  sweet  beauty  and  merry  twinkling 
humor  of  Elia  and  the  Letters,  can  realize  readily 
how  it  is  that  this  airy,  sprightly,  and  most  wise, 
genial  soul,  could  ever  gather  such  nurture  in  the 
shadows  of  Christ's  Hospital,  and  the  eternal 
dust  and  din  of  London.  One  imagines  that  the 
endless  drudgery  of  the  desk,  and  the  shadow 
of  a  home  where  no  face  of  wife  or  child  ever 
lighted  at  the  .sound  of  his  footstep,  ought  to 
have  withered  him  up ;  and  so  it  ought,  but 
for  one  thing  that  flashes  down  into  the  mystery, 
and,  besides  the  fact  of  his  endowment,  solves 
the  problem.  When  Charles  Lamb  was  a  young 
man,  standing  at  the  portals  of  life,  with  that 
rich  nature  beating  in  his  heart,  his  sister  Mary, 
in  a  sudden  passion  of  insanity,  did  the  most 
awful  deed  that  daughter  can  do  to  mother. 
Then,  when  the  dust  was  given  to  the  dust,  this 
young  man  said,  "  If  I  remain  as  I  am,  and  make 
my  .sister  a  home,  there  may  be  months  or  years 
at  a  time  when  she  can  live  with  me  in  freedom 
and  comfort ',  but,  if  I  put  her  away,  there  can 
be  no  future  for  her   but  the   asylum   all   the 


ROOT   AND   FLOWER.  11 

days  of  her  life."  Then  the  young  man  buried 
his  rich  nature  in  the  soil  of  that  home.  And,  in 
all  his  life,  he  never  told  the  world  what  he  had 
done ;  revealing  himself  so  frankly  in  all  beside, 
there  is  no  hint  of  that  prime  revelation  which 
might  open  all  the  rest.  He  buried  his  life.  And, 
were  we  ignorant  of  this  great  law  of  what  is  rich 
soil  to  a  noble  root,  we  would  say,  Now  he  will 
wither  away  and  die.  But,  lo !  God  brings  out 
of  that  burial  a  flower,  whose  perfume  and  beauty 
charm  the  world.  Had  he  saved  his  life,  it  may 
be  he  had  lost  it ;  but,  because  he  gave  it,  he 
saved  it ;  because  he  went  into  the  darkness,  he 
sprang  into  the  light;  he  rose  because  he  was 
buried,  and  his  uttermost  loss  became  his  most 
transcendent  gain. 

There  is  nothing  more  touching  to  me  in 
all  literature,  than  those  poems  and  letters  of 
Burns'  that  reveal  to  us  this  great  fact  of  ad- 
verse influences  perfecting  the  Divine  purpose. 
We  hear  eminent  critics  deplore  the  fact  that 
Burns  wasted  his  powers.  They  say  he  ought 
to  have  written  an  epic.  Friends,  Burns  did 
write  an  epic ;  and  the  subject  was  the  battle 
of  a  soul  with  its  physical,  social,  and  spiritual 


12  ROOT  AND   FLOWER. 

adversaries,  —  an  epic  perhaps  the  most  signifi- 
cant that  ever  was  written.  And  his  whole  life, 
and  every  line  in  his  poems,  blend  together  to 
make  it ;  and  it  trembles  all  over  with  this  truth 
of  a  life  found  in  the  losing,  and  lost  in  the  find- 
ing. Born  in  the  worst  period  and  place  of 
a  fossilized  Calvinism,  he  drew  from  that  very 
fossil  the  richest  nurture  for  a  broad  and  catholic 
trust  in  the  Infinite  Love.  Placed  where  a  free 
expression  of  opinion  in  religious  speculation  was 
counted  atheism,  and  in  politics  treason,  the  very 
bonds  that  were  laid  on  his  soul  to  keep  him  down, 
quickened  him  into  some  of  the  deepest  and  grand- 
est utterances  for  freedom  that  ever  rang  through 
the  world.  Taught  from  his  cradle  that  our  human 
nature  is  utterly  abhorrent  and  bad,  the  angels 
trust  not  each  other  with  a  more  perfect  trust 
than  that  which  filled  his  soul  toward  humanity. 
Loving  as  few  men  ever  loved,  fewer  ever  told, 
as  he  did,  what  love  can  do  to  lift  a  man  near  to 
heaven,  or  to  sink  him  into  a  great  deep.  No  man 
ever  painted  such  an  interior  as  the  "  Cotter's 
Saturday  Night,"  or  by  implication  called  such 
solemn  penalties  upon  his  own  soul  for  causing 
the  mother  to  weep,  and  the  father  to  hang  his 


ROOT   AND    FLOWER.  13 

head  in  such  a  place.  And  out  of  that  bitter 
time  and  place,  with  that  passionate,  sinful,  sor- 
rowful nature,  the  result  of  the  life,  in  the  whole 
breadth  of  it,  remains  one  of  the  richest  flowers 
that  ever  blossomed  on  the  world.  A  Scot- 
tish peasant,  deplorably  poor,  he  left  the  world 
richer  beyond  all  price.  Born  into  the  lap  of 
a  grim  and  forbidding  time,  the  time  was  glo- 
rified in  his  birth.  More  selfish  than  most  sin- 
ners, he  was  more  unselfish  than  almost  any 
saint.  And  well  he  might  have  cried  out,  "  Let 
no  man  look  at  me  who  wants  to  see  me,  or 
try  to  find  the  result  of  my  life  by  the  measure 
of  what  he  sees.  I  shall  die,  broken  down  by 
poverty  and  sorrow  and  sin ;  but  I  shall  rise 
again,  and  lead  captivity  captive,  and  receive  gifts 
for  men.  Old  sectarian  antagonisms  will  forget 
to  be  hard  and  unmerciful,  as  they  hear  me  plead- 
ing ;  and  the  fires  of  a  nobler  political  faith 
glow  for  ever  in  the  words  I  have  uttered  of  the 
rights  of  man.  Men  shall  look  more  frankly 
into  each  other's  faces,  when  they  hear  me  cry, 
'  A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that ; '  and  the  atheist 
gulp  down  his  sneer,  as  he  ponders  over  my 
rebuke.     My  better  nature  shall  make  good  men 


14  ROOT   AND   FLOWER. 

better ;   my  wild  cries  for  pardon  teach  the  sin 
ner  afresh  the  curse  of  sim     My  life  was  lost, 
that  it  might  be  found ;  I  died  that  I  might  bear 
much  fruit." 

Now,  I  have  mentioned  these  representative 
lives,  bearing  on  different  sides  of  the  thought 
before  us,  in  order  that  you  may  see,  by  these 
examples,  how  I  want  to  urge  upon  you  the  fact, 
that  this  clear  and  steady  insight  into  the  corre- 
spondence between  nature  in  the  plant  and  nature 
in  the  man,  which  comes  out  so  constantly  in 
the  teachings  of  Christ,  is  weighted  with  a  deep 
meaning,  and  is  for  ever  open  to  suggest  rich 
lessons  for  the  soul. 

And  this  first  of  all, — that  this  present,  per- 
sonal-bounded life  is  but  faintly  understood,  it  is 
so  poor  in  comparison  with  what  shall  come  out 
of  it,  if  we  are  steady  to  its  great  central  purpose. 

My  shrivelled  bulb,  darkling  there  under  the 
soil ;  this  homely,  near-sighted  woman,  sneering 
at  the  "  Mcthodies  ;  "  this  poor,  stuttering  London 
clerk,  watching  his  sometimes  insane  sister;  this 
Ayrshire  peasant,  whose  highest  preferment  was 
to  be  a  gauger,  and  whose  heart  exulted  because 
he   had  "dinnered  wi'  a  lord," — a  lord  whose 


BOOT   AND   FLOWER.  15 

only  hope  of  being  remembered  now  on  this  earth 
lies  in  that  single  dinner ;  this  peasant  man  of 
Galilee,  whose  brothers  did  not  believe  in  him, — 
all  these  instances  strike  the  truth  home,  that  we 
see  but  a  poor  hint  now  of  the  glory  resting  on 
our  life,  to  be  discovered  when  that  life  shall  be 
made  perfect. 

That  man  walking  over  the  hills  of  Jewry  in 
the  old  time  was  no  more  like  our  worshipful 
Christ  and  Son  of  God,  if  you  had  seen  him,  than 
the  May  root  is  like  the  August  flower.  That 
quiet  woman,  before  she  wrote  "  Jane  Eyre,"  was 
no  more  to  the  world  than  the  woman  hidden 
to-day  in  our  prairies  or  backwoods,  who  shall 
yet  reveal  herself  and  be  central  to  the  world. 
Charles  Lamb  and  Robert  Burns,  could  they 
come  back,  would  find  nations  waiting  to  do 
them  homage,  on  the  very  spot  where  they  felt 
most  deeply  the  bitterness  of  neglect.  And 
this,  not  so  much  because  the  world  was  blind 
to  their  beauty,  as  that  this  beauty  had  not  yet 
flowered  out.  They  died,"  not  having  received 
the  promise,  but  seeing  it  afar  off;  God  having 
reserved  some  better  thing  for  us,  that  they  with- 
out us  should  not  be  made  perfect." 


16  ROOT  AND   FLOWER. 

Then  there  is  this  lesson,  that  those  very 
elements  of  decay  and  death  we  fear  will  hin- 
der, to  the  true  soul  will  not  hinder,  but  help ; 
nay,  be  vital  and  essential  to  the  great  pur- 
pose for  which  that  soul  came,  and  to  which  it 
tends. 

I  know  of  nothing  more  fatal,  in  all  outward 
seeming,  than  Jewry  to  Christ,  and  Ayrshire  to 
Burns,  and  Fleet  Street  to  Lamb,  and  Haworth  to 
Charlotte  Bronte*.  If  God,  in  every  one  of  these 
instances,  had  revealed  to  me  the  conditional  as 
the  root  of  the  resulting  life,  I  think  I  should 
have  besought  him  every  time  to  alter  the  decis- 
ion, and  not  plant  such  holy  and  noble  natures  in 
such  a  dismal  soil ;  while  the  place  I  should  have 
chosen,  had  it  been  left  to  me,  would  probably  be 
as  if  I  had  kept  the  root  my  friend  gave  me  safely 
locked  in  my  desk,  —  never  thinking  how  it  is  out 
of  the  very  contest  with  these  antagonisms,  that 
the  choicest  power  and  grace  must  spring:  as 
the  farce  of  saying  mass  by  the  scented  priests 
in  Rome  made  Luther  say  it  with  a  deeper 
reverence,  and  more  anxious  searching  for  its 
grace.  But,  above  all,  may  we  not  see  this 
greatest   lesson,  that  more  profit  comes  to  the 


ROOT   AND   FLOWER.  17 

soul,  and  all  related  to  it,  out  of  separation  and 
darkness  and  death,  in  God's  good  time,  than  can 
ever  come  out  of  union  and  light  and  life  ?  "  Ex- 
cept a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die, 
it  abidcth  alone  ;  but,  if  it  die,  it  will  bring  forth 
much  fruit." 

I  suppose  no  men  that  ever  lived  would  be 
more  ready  than  these  apostles  to  say,  "  We  grant 
this,  if  you  mean  a  grain  of  wheat ;  but  we  can- 
not see  it,  if  you  mean  the  life  of  a  man."  Yet 
they  themselves  were  to  furnish  one  of  the  most 
striking  applications  of  the  fact  ever  found  in 
human  history.  While  the  Messiah  was  with 
them,  they  blundered  over  his  sayings,  hesitated 
whether  they  could  go  with  him,  held  a  divided 
love,  and  saw  through  a  glass  darkly,  as  I  saw 
the  August  flower  in  the  root  of  June.  But 
when  he  died  and  was  gone,  then  he  came  back 
to  them  in  all  his  glory  and  power.  When  they 
had  lost  him,  and  darkness  and  death  had  taken 
him  seemingly  into  their  heart,  then  came  the 
resurrection.  Every  word  he  had  said  became 
radiant  with  tenderness  and  truth  and  love. 
His  deeds  caught  a  new  meaning.  His  life  filled 
before  them  into  an  ever-growing  wonder ;   and 


18  ROOT  AND   FLOWER. 

he  was  transfigured  for  ever,  not  to  three  men, 
but  to  the  universe.  Then,  as  the  great  mem- 
ories filled  them,  their  sense  grew  ever  clearer  of 
what  their  Friend  had  been  ;  but  even  that,  at  last, 
was  lost  in  the  sense  of  what  he  was.  So  they 
loved  him,  and  labored  and  lived  and  died  for 
him ;  and,  when  their  time  came,  went  singing, 
with  a  most  glorious  and  transcendent  exultation, 
into  the  shadow  of  death,  because  his  light,  shin- 
ing through  the  shadow,  goldened  all  the  way. 

Now,  this  is  where  the  -truth  under  discussion 
comes  most  urgently  home  to  every  one  of  us. 
The  time  comes  again  and  again,  when  we  must 
bury  the  best  we  have,  and  leave  it  in  the  soil,  — 
sever  some  precious  belonging  of  life  for  duty 
,  with  Lamb  ;  or  find  sin  or  circumstance,  sever  it 
with  Burns.  The  prime  condition  of  a  life  ever 
found,  is  a  life  ever  lost.  But  there  are  times 
when  we  all  feel  poor  and  bare  and  sad  for 
our  losses,  and  wonder  whether  it  was  not  all 
wrong  when  the  treasure  was  taken  away.  I 
tell  you,  if  we  are  poor  because  we  stand  true 
to  life  and  duty,  we  are  poor  only  as  the  sower 
is  poor,  because  he  has  to  cast  his  wheat  into 
the  furrow,  and  then   wait  for  the   sheaves   of 


ROOT   AND    FLOWER.  19 

harvest,  —  poor  as  I  was  poor,  because  ray  flower- 
root  was  not  treasured  where  it  would  remain 
as  it  was,  but  was  cast  where  a  life  was  wait- 
ing to  receive  and  re-create  it,  as  true  in  its 
way  and  mighty  as  the  life  of  the  first  arch- 
angel. 

Our  poverty,  then,  is  our  wealth,  and  our  loss 
our  gain.  If  our  life  is  as  God  will,  yet  is  bare, 
it  is  only  as  the  granary  is  bare  in  June.  That 
very  bareness  is  the  prophecy  of  plenty ;  and 
fulness  alone  in  June  might  bring  grave  reason 
to  fear,  that  there  might  be  sparseness  and  hun- 
ger in  January.  When  I  sow  my  good  treasure 
broadcast,  as  Christ  did  ;  when  I  give  myself  with 
what  I  am  giving,  —  then,  as  the  earth  never  fails 
of  her  harvest,  but,  in  the  Old  World  or  the  New, 
will  surely  bring  us  our  daily  bread,  so  the  soul 
can  never  fail  of  her  divine  returns.  Here  or 
yonder,  in  the  full  time,  comes  the  full  blessing ; 
the  flower  flashing  out  glory,  the  fields  laugh- 
ing with  plenty.* 

"  Then  who  can  murmur  and  misdoubt, 
When  God's  great  bounty  finds  him  out?  " 

And  just  as  I  can  gather  and  deepen  this  faith ; 
as  I  can  realize,  though  I  have  never  seen,  the 


20  EOOT   AND   FLOWER. 

beauty  of  ray  August,  —  I  shall  be  ready  to  plant 
my  root,  to  let  nay  wheat  fall  into  the  ground 
and  die,  to  give  my  life.  Our  great  temptation  is 
to  hold  on  to  the  seed-corn.  We  are  in  agony 
because  of  the  sowing.  When  the  angel  comes 
and  takes  our  treasure,  we  say  we  will  go  too, 
that  we  may  die  also.  But  the  hand  so  masterful 
and  yet  so  gentle  takes  our  treasure,  and  casts  it 
into  its  grave ;  and  then  the  hope  and  love  and 
life  of  our  life  is  dead.    * 

Dead,  did  I  say  ?  What  means  this  story  of 
the  summer  ?  Is  not  every  day  proclaiming 
through  all  the  land,  that  what  was  seeming 
death  is  unconquerable  life  ?  Death  has  no 
dominion ;  death  is  lost  in  victory.  The  resur- 
rection comes  while  I  am  going  to  look  at  the 
grave,  and  weep  there,  and  count  my  losses  and 
recount  my  poverty.  And  then  the  shining  ones 
tell  me  the  great  secret,  and  send  me  on  my  way, 
lost  in  wonder  and  solemn  joy. 

So  it  has  been  with  our  nation*  Our  root  was 
buried  in  the  rank  soil  of  decay  and  death  ;  and 
many  cried  out  that  the  noble  thing  perfected  out 
of  a  former  summer,  and  watered  by  the  tears  and 
enriched  with  the  blood  of  the  lathers,  was  clean 


ROOT   AND   FLOWER.  21 

lost.  It  was  because  God  had  taken  it  out  of 
its  dead  coverings,  and  cast  it  into  the  heart  of 
elements  that  throb  with  life,  as  the  earth  throbs 
with  the  summer  sun.  It  was  buried  that  it 
might  rise.  The  flowering  of  the  former  sum- 
mer was  over  and  dune ;  the  blossoms  of  our 
national  holiness  had  withered  away ;  the  root 
alone  was  left.  We  held  on  to  that  through  the 
winter,  thank  God  ;  but  then  we  wanted  to  hold 
on  to  it  through  the  summer  also :  we  feared  to 
trust  it  to  the  new  spring.  The  root,  withered  as 
it  was,  was  what  we  wanted.  But  our  Father  is 
the  husbandman ;  and  he  buried  the  root  out  of 
our  sight.  It  was  because  there  was  as  sure  a 
hope  for  the  nation  as  there  is  for  June  roses. 
We  had  to  watch  painfully  for  it,  —  to  wrestle 
with  awful  oppositions  through  a  dark  night. 
But  so  does  the  farmer  watch  and  wrestle  for  his 
harvest.  Canker-worm  and  caterpillar  take  their 
toll ;  wind  and  storm  do  their  work.  Anxiety 
and  care  can  never  be  quite  absent.  They  are 
hardly  more  absent  to-day  than  ever  they  were  ; 
only  the  day  is  sure  to  come  in  the  nation  as  in 
our  life,  in  our  life  as  in  the  nation,  when  the 
flower  unfolds  to  the  sun  in  its  perfect  glory. 


22  EOOT   AND   FLOWER. 

When  the  battle  of  Shiloli  was  fought,  I  went 
from  Chicago  to  the  battle-field,  with  a  corps  of 
nurses,  to  take  care  of  the  wounded  men.  Our 
city,  when  I  left  it,  was  sheeted  in  grim  black 
weather :  not  a  leaf  was  open  on  the  trees,  not 
a  flower  in  the  gardens.  But,  when  we  got  into 
the  South,  the  orchards  were  rejoicing  in  great 
rosy  clouds  of  apple-blossom,  and  the  woods  were 
full  of  song.  When  I  came  back  to  Chicago, 
however,  the  trees  were  still  bare.  Here  and 
there,  a  leaf  had  ventured  out,  and  was  shivering 
in  the  bitter  wind  :  but  there  was  no  spring  yet ; 
and  men  were  reaping  up  all  their  old  grudges 
against  the  Lakes  and  their  weather,  and  were 
sure  the  spring  would  never  come. 

Now,  I  have  one  tree  just  by  my  study  win- 
dow, with  which  I  have  managed  to  become  very 
intimate.  We  nod  to  each  other  every  morning. 
In  those  long  black  days,  I  could  sec  my  friend 
was  looking  disheartened  enough.  It  had  great 
treasure  of  buds ;  but  it  seemed  to  fold  them  as 
a  child  folds  a  treasure  in  its  clasped  fingers,  and 
all  the  while  to  be  saying,  "  Well,  I  do  think  this 
spring  will  never  come."  But  I  said,  "  Hold  on, 
good  tree :    spring  is  coming.     I  saw  her  down 


ROOT    AND    FLOWER.  23 

there  on  the  Alabama  line.  Here  where  you  are 
is  the  winter,  —  fierce,  persistent,  determined  to 
stay.  Yonder,  where  I  have  been,  is  the  spring, 
—  soft,  sunny,  filling  the  woods  with  her  white 
splendor ;  and  I  can  see  the  blossoms  pouring  up 
this  way,  faster  than  I  could  run  on  my  feet  to 
tell  you."  And  it  was  so.  The  warm  days  came 
at  last ;  the  summer  was  victor ;  and  my  tree 
stood,  tremulous  in  her  beautiful  green  robes,  like 
a  bride  adorned  for  her  wedding. 

Now,  why  will  men  not  take  these  tilings  into 
their  hearts,  and  be  as  full  of  faith  in  the  mean- 
ing and  purpose  of  their  lives  as  of  their  flowers  ? 
Is  the  man  alone  the  neglected  step-child  ?  are  his 
fortunes  alone  misfortunes  ?  are  we  much  worse 
than  the  lilies  ?  Or  is  it  not  of  all  things  true, 
that  as  man  rises  nearest  of  all  on  this  earth 
to  the  image  of  the  Infinite,  so  he  is  nearest  of 
all  on  this  earth  to  the  Providence  that  enfolds 
and  blesses  all? 


II. 

WHAT  A  LEAF   SAID. 

Isa.  Ixiv.  C :  "  We  all  do  fade  as  a  leaf." 

My  text  is  a  sermon  in  itself.  It  was  whis- 
pered from  the  trees,  as  you  came  to  church:  it 
will  rustle  under  your  feet,  as  you  go  home.  It 
is  the  sermon  of  these  autumn  days,  proclaiming 
the  dissolution,  as  the  spring  proclaimed  the  res- 
urrection and  the  life.  I  heard  this  sermon, 
when  I  was  seventeen,  in  the  plane-trees  that 
covered  the  foss  of  an  old  Roman  camp :  I  shall 
hear  it,  if  I  live,  when  I  am  seventy,  in  the  elms 
and  maples  by  this  lake  shore  ;  and  it  has  always 
been  the  one  thing,  that  the  fading  and  falling 
leaf  is  the  mute  monitor  of  the  fading  and  failing 
life. 

And  I  can  well   believe   how  my  experience 
must  answer   to   yours,  —  how,  in   pensive  mo- 
ments all  your  life  long,  when  the  crimson  ban- 
ners unfold  on  the  trees,  and  the  leaves  begin  to 
[241 


WHAT    A    LEAF    SAID.  25 

fall  about  your  path,  you  have  thought  more  pain- 
fully of  the  fading  life  than  at  any  other  time 
in  the  year.  This  seems  to  be  not  only  the  com- 
mon feeling,  but  the  habit  also  of  the  prophet 
and  seer.  Few  psalms  were  ever  sung  about  the 
fading  leaf,  that  had  for  their  burden  a  great  cry 
of  accomplishment  and  victory.  All  rejoice  over 
the  purple  grape  and  ripened  grain.  The  fruit, 
ruddy  and  golden,  seems  to  laugh  at  us  on  the 
tree ;  but  the  leaf,  rustling  under  our  feet  or 
shivering  in  the  sharp  frost,  seems  to  tell  only 
of  dissolution  and  death.  We  thank  God  in 
our  great  Thanksgiving  for  the  kindly  fruits  of 
the  earth :  we  never  thank  him  for  the  kindly 
leaves.  Every  thing  on  the  farm  and  in  the 
garden  is  considered,  except  the  leaf.  "  How 
strange  and  awful  the  gusty  wind  and  whirling 
leaves  of  the  autumnal  day !  "  Coleridge  cries ; 
and  he  does  but  express  what  all  men  feel.  We 
tack  it  into  a  distich  for  our  children's  copy- 
books ;  we  set  it  to  music,  and  sing  it  in  our 
parlors,  and  churches ;  and  we  engrave  it  on 
the  memorial  stones  of  our  dead,  —  that  we  all 
do  fade  as  a  leaf. 

And  yet  I  do  not  intend  to  re-echo  this  cry 
2 


26  WHAT   A   LEAP   SAID. 

to  you  this  morning.  At  the  best,  it  is  not  the 
cry  of  the  gospel,  but  of  the  law.  It  is  not  of 
salvation  by  grace,  but  of  dissolution  by  nature, 
that  we  are  thinking,  when  the  leaves  flutter 
down  from  the  trees,  and  the  hollow  winds  sigh 
through  the  woodlands.  He  is  no  gospel  minis- 
ter who  will  wilfully  discourse  of  discouragement. 
I  know  of  no  voice  that  ought  to  be  held  so  sa- 
credly for  inspiration  as  the  voice  of  the  preacher, 
except,  indeed,  that  of  the  husband  or  wife.  "We 
do  not  come  to  church  to  be  told  that  we  are 
withered  leaves  and  crawling  worms,  but  to  be 
assured  that  we  are  men  made  only  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels,  and  heirs  of  the  everlasting  life. 
We  come  to  the  preacher  to  hear  what  will  help 
us  sing,  —  to  realize  what  there  is  beside  and  bet- 
ter than  fading  and  falling.  There  is  not  a  man 
of  us  that  docs  not  encounter  quite  enough  on 
week-days  to  dishearten  and  discourage  him,  in 
being  compelled  to  listen  to  "  Thus  saith  the 
world,"  without  being  discouraged  on  a  Sunday 
by  "  Tims  saith  the  Lord." 

So,  while  I  will  frankly  say  my  text  is  true,  and 
the  sermon  it  preaches  is  true,  and  the  whisper 
we  hear  in  the  autumn  wind  is  true,  this  question 


WHAT   A   LEAF   SAID.  27 

still  waits  to  be  answered,  "  Roiv  is  it  true  ? "  Is 
the  fading  of  the  leaf  the  only  true  thing  about 
it,  the  only  matter  worth  our  painful,  earnest 
thought ;  or  is  there  something  more  and  better  ? 
What  can  the  leaf  crimsoning  on  the  tree,  and 
the  wind  wailing  through  the  branches,  whisper 
to  our  hearts  beside  this  one  sad  strain,  "  We  all 
do  fade  as  a  leaf"  ? 

Well,  this,  I  think,  first  of  all.  It  can  say, 
"  Take  care  you  do  not  go  wrong,  in  the  first 
step,  by  misunderstanding  entirely  what  it  is  for 
a  leaf  to  fade  ;  that  you  do  not  exalt  that  into  the 
greatest,  which  may  be  of  the  smallest  possible 
consequence ;  and  that  your  steady  gaze  at  this 
point  in  its  being  does  not  shut  out  at  once 
reflection  and  anticipation,  —  what  the  leaf  has 
been,  and  what  it  may  be,  in  the  providence  of 
God." 

I  do  not  say  this  to  apologize  for  the  leaf.  I 
have  no  idea  that  prospect  and  retrospect  shall 
clasp  hands  over  it,  and  hide  it  from  our  sight. 
I  want  the  leaf  to  testify  for  itself,  and  say,  "  Yes, 
indeed,  your  text  is  true.  I  am  a  fading  Leaf 
certainly,  —  and  all  leaves  fade.  But  then  you 
must  remember,  that  this  is  the  true  time  to  fade, 


28  WHAT   A   LEAF   SAID. 

as  the  May-days  were  to  spring ;  and,  I  cannot 
donbt  this,  that  any  true  time  must  be  a  good 
time.  Beside,  I  want  you  to  tell  me,  whether  I 
am  not,  in  my  degree,  a  ripe  and  perfect  fruit,  as 
certainly  as  your  grape  or  apple ;  and  so  whether 
my  falling  is  not  like  the  fall  of  all  ripe  fruit,  the 
proof  that  I  have  done  God's  will  through  storm 
and  shine,  and  hear  him  whispering, '  Well  done ' 
in  the  first  frost ;  so  that  when  I  am  turning  to 
fall,  am  I  not  also  turning  to  rise ;  to  be  again, 
in  my  degree,  a  servant  and  minister  of  the  grace 
of  God  ? 

"  The  truth  is,"  my  leaf  may  continue,  "  you 
look  at  a  leaf  as  you  look  at  life,  along  the  sur- 
face, instead  of  into  the  deep :  your  estimate  is 
by  superfice,  not  cube  measure.  I  seem  to  fall : 
I  do  fall.  But,  if  it  were  possible  for  you  to 
see  what  I  am  doing  beside,  you  would  wonder, 
as  you  noted,  how  the  spirit  that  has  animate'd 
me,  and  been  the  life  of  my  life,  through  all 
the  days  and  nights  since  I  came  into  being,  is 
quietly  freeing  itself  from  its  old  familiar  frame ; 
and  rising,  not  in  fable  but  in  fact,  in  deed  and  in 
truth,  to  wait  the  bidding  of  the  Master;  while  the 
frame  itself,  this  thing  shivering  over  your  head 


WHAT  A  LEAF   SAID.  29 

or  rustling  under  your  feet,  will  be  guarded  and 
kept  until  the  morning  of  its  resurrection.  Did 
you  rejoice  this  summer  over  your  strawberries 
and  roses,  and  not  remember,  how,  for  a  thousand 
ages,  my  race,  faded  leaves  as  you  call  us,  have 
lain  treasured,  waiting  to  be  their  ministers  and 
yours  whenever  you  should  come  to  need  us  ? 
You  preach  from  your  text,  '  We  all  do  fade  as  a 
leaf:'  why  do  you  not  sometimes  preach  from 
that  other  text, '  The  leaves  of  the  tree  are  for 
the  healing  of  the  nations  ? '  "What  nation  is  not 
healed  through  our  ministry  ?  What  great  thing 
was  ever  done  where  we  cast  no  shadow  ?  You 
cry  '  Nothing  but  leaves,'  and  think  you  have 
touched  the  dusty  heart  of  all  barrenness.  When 
you  know  what  it  is  to  be  even  a  faded  and 
fallen  leaf,  there  will  be  a  better  music  in  your 
cry.  It  is  true,  we  are  nothing  but  leaves ;  yet, 
in  the  order  of  the  creation,  you  had  been  noth- 
ing but  for  us.  Here,  as  everywhere,  there  is  no 
broken  link  in  the  chain  that  binds  all  things 
God  has  made,  fast  to  his  throne,  no  step  lost 
out  of  the  ladder  stretching  from  earth  to  heaven, 
no  dry  place  in  the  river  of  life.  From  the  atom 
to  the  angel,  in  Him  we  live  and  move,  and  have 


30  WHAT   A   LEAF  SAID. 

our  being;  and  he  is  not  far  from  every  one 
of  us." 

Then,  when  we  come  to  understand  this,  we 
are  aware,  how  this  leaf  falls  honorably,  after 
doing  what  one  leaf  may  do  for  its  own  and  the 
common  blessing.  A  mere  leaf,  one  in  countless 
myriads,  it  did  not  come  out  of  chance,  and  does 
not  go  into  chance.  It  cannot  fall  to  the  ground, 
as  it  could  not  bloom  on  the  tree,  without  the 
will  of  our  Father ;  and  so,  for  leaves  at  least, 
whatever  we  may  believe  of  lives,  this  fading  and 
falling  is  not  defeat  and  death,  but  victory  and 
life. 

For,  again,  if  my  leaf  may  testify,  it  will  say, 
"  I  am  a  fading  leaf  certainly ;  watching  for  the 
sun  and  frost  to  give  the  signal  for  my  dissolu- 
tion. I  have  had  to  bear  heavy  rains,  to  wrestle 
with  great  storms,  to  shudder  in  electric  fires,  to 
fight  my  way  and  hold  my  own  as  well  as  I  could 
in  the  teeth  of  foes  and  parasites,  ever  since 
I  began  to  spring.  But  this  I  can  say,  as  I  fall, 
that  there  has  been  no  day  since  I  first  began  to 
grow,  when  I  have  not  tried  to  be  true  to  the  law 
of  my  life,  as  the  mediator,  bridging  the  gulf 
between  senseless  matter  and  the  sentient  soul. 


WHAT   A   LEAF   SAID.  31 

You  rejoice  in  your  fruit;  if  there  had  been  no 
leaf,  there  could  have  been  no  fruit,  and  there 
would  be  no  tree.  The  servant  of  all,  I  am,  in 
my  way,  the  greatest  of  all,  by  the  infallible 
ordination  and  law  of  all  service.  I  give  you 
walnut  Ibr  your  gun-stock,  and  ash  for  the 
handle  of  your  plough.  I  work  through  all 
weathers  to  build  your  ships,  factories,  homes, 
and  churches.  I  am  indispensable  to  the  match 
for  your  fire,  and  the  mast  for  your  merchantman. 
I  brace  myself,  and  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder 
with  my  fellows  on  great  pines,  keeping  watch 
and  ward  in  the  long  winter,  on  every  coigne  of 
vantage,  to  keep  you  from  the  driving  northern 
storms,  and  spread  myself  as  a  shield  over  valley 
and  champaign,  to  shelter  you  from  the  burning 
summer  heats.  I  cast  my  mantle  over  the  rain- 
drop, until  it  can  find  a  runlet;  and  the  runlet 
I  shelter  to  the  rivulet,  the  rivulet  to  the  river, 
and  the  river  to  the  sea.  I  cover  the  springs 
among  the  moss,  and  weave  my  tapestry  to  adorn 
the  bare  desolation  of  the  mountains.  I  hold 
myself,  simple  and  separate,  always  to  my  one 
purpose.  And  now,  in  my  falling,  I  shall  fall  for 
blessing,  and  cease  to  be  a  leaf  because,  as  a  leaf, 


32  WHAT   A   LEAF   SAID. 

I  am  no  longer  needed.  But,  in  ceasing  to  be 
what  I  am,  I  may  well  remind  3-011  of  what  one 
has  said  who  loves  us,  and  takes  us  into  his 
heart  beyond  all  men  living :  '  We  compare 
ourselves  to  leaves :  the  leaves  may  well  scorn 
the  comparison,  if  we  live  only  for  ourselves. 
If  ever  in  the  autumn  a  pensiveness  steals  over 
us,  as  the  leaves  flutter  by  in  their  fading,  may 
we  not  wisely  look  up  to  their  mighty  monu- 
ments ;  and  as  we  see  how  fair  they  are,  how 
far  prolonged  in  ai  ch  and  aisle  the  avenues  of  the 
valleys,  the  fringes  of  the  hills,  so  stately,  so 
eternal ;  the  joy  of  man,  the  comfort  of  all  living 
creatures,  the  glory  of  the  earth  —  remember  that 
these  are  but  the  monuments  of  fading  leaves, 
that  faintly  flit  past  us  to  die  ?  Let  them  not  die 
before  we  read  and  understand  their  holy  revela- 
tion ;  so  that  we  also,  careless  of  a  monument 
for  the  grave,  may  build  one  in  the  world,  by 
which  men  may  be  taught  to  remember,  not 
where  we  died,  but  where  we  lived.' ' 

Then,  keeping  still  to  my  parable,  I  can  see  how 
my  leaf  will  say  further :  "  You  can  think  as  you 
like,  therefore,  about  man,  as  he  fades  and  lulls, 
—  make  the  end  of  your  life  here  as  mournful 


WHAT   A   LEAF   SAID.  33 

as  you  please,  —  dishonor  death  by  evil  names 
and  images,  as  its  shadow  falls  upon  your 
race ;  but  I  ask  you,  once  for  all,  to  leave 
me  out  of  your  sad  analogies.  I  protest 
against  being  counted  as  one  that  shudders  at 
dissolution.  I  might  have  done  that  in  June, 
when  my  life  was  all  to  live;  but  in  Septembei-, 
when  it  has  had  its  day,  as  I  begin  to  loosen 
from  the  spray  where  God  caused  me  to  spring, 
the  loosening  seems  as  good  as  ever,  did  the 
springing. 

"  Then,  there  is  another  thing.  I  cannot  tell 
much  about  it ;  it  is  just  a  sweet,  misty  mystery, 
to  be  made  clear,  no  doubt,  in  due  time.  But 
near  my  heart,  through  all  my  summer,  faint  at 
first,  but  growing  stronger  with  the  growing 
days,  I  have  felt  and  nursed  and  shielded  the 
intimation  of  another  springing  in  a  spring-time 
to  come,  to  which  my  present  dissolution  seems 
to  be  entirely  Indispensable.  So,  then,  I  shall  die 
as  I  have  lived,  with  my  face  to  the  sun  and  the 
great  loving  heavens,  and  welcome  the  autumn 
frost  as  I  welcomed  the  spring  sunshine.  It  is 
true  that  I  have  no  hope  like  that  your  race 
holds  of  living  again, — 
2* 


34  WHAT   A   LEAF   SAID. 

'  Wrapped  from  the  fickle  and  the  frail, 
With  gathered  powers  yet  the  same, 
Piercing  the  keen  seraphic  flame 
From  orb  to  orb,  from  vail  to  vail.' 

My  spirit  must  go  whence  it  came,  and  my  frame 
must  be  trodden  into  the  dust ;  yet  I  fear  noth- 
ing that  can  happen  to  either,  because  I  know 
fhat  both  will  be  held  in  the  hollow  of  His  hand 
who  counts  a  faded  leaf.  I  am  sure  of  all  the 
life  I  shall  ever  need.  I  know  that  my  Redeemer 
live th.  .God  will  not  leave  me  in  the  grave. 
Though  I  am'  only  a  leaf,  '  All  the  days  of  my 
appointed  time  will  I  wait  till  my  change  come, 
and  trust  the  wisdom  that  has  done  so  well  for 
me  this  time,  what  that  change  shall  be.'  And 
so,  if  men  are  crying,  '  We  all  do  fade  as  a  leaf,' 
in  any  spirit  of  down-looking  sadness  and  fear, 
let  them  speak  for  their  race,  not  for  ours  ;  be- 
cause, being  true  to  life,  we  find  out  how  to  be 
true  to  death,  and  secure  an  entrance  into  the  life 
to  come." 

Now,  need  I  say,  that,  in  lingering  so  over  the 
leaf,  I  am  seeking  the  lesson  for  the  life,  how 
sure  is  the  assurance,  that,  if  we  will  be  so  faith- 
ful even  as  a  leaf  on  a  tree,  when  we  fade  and 
fall  there  can  be  no  room  for  regret ;  because 


WHAT   A   LEAF   SAID.  35 

aspect,  prospect,  and  retrospect  will  be  all  alike 
good,  as  we  look  down  into  the  deeps  of  life, 
and  up  through  its  altitudes,  instead  of  watch- 
ing, as  we  do,  merely  along  its  surfaces.  In 
this  spirit,  I  want  to  trace,  then,  the  lesson  of 
my  parable,  pointed  alike  at  the  cry  in  the  text 
and  the  echo  in  our  hearts.  And,  in  doing  this, 
to  keep  as  close  as  I  can  to  the  lines  I  have 
drawn,  and,  running  them  along  their  natural 
parallels  of  the  leaf  and  the  life,  say  agreed  that 
we  all  do  fade  as  a  leaf:  what  then? 

For  there  is  no  alternative  but  to  face  the 
fact.  We  all  do  fade  and  fall.  We  know  that 
dear  faces  and  presences  do  fade  out  from  every 
life.  I  walked  one  summer  under  the  green 
leaves,  on  Staten  Island,  with  as  dear  a  friend 
as  ever  man  had  on  the  earth ;  and  Ave  said, 
"  We  will  meet  here,  and  walk  and  talk  so, 
every  summer;"  but,  when  we  met  again,  some- 
thing had  changed.  When  the  summer  came 
again,  my  friend  was  fighting  for  his  life;  and, 
before  another  summer,  I  went  down  from  the 
West  into  the  quiet  New-England  valley  where 
he  was  brought  up,  to  say  a  prayer  by  his  grave. 
Indeed,  indeed,  it  is  true  we  all  do  fade  as  a  leaf. 


36  WHAT    A    LEAF    SAID. 

Yet  I  say,  what  then  ?  Am  I  sure  that  I  fully  real- 
ize what  it  is  to  fade  as  a  leaf?  Do  I  touch,  in 
my  estimate,  the  cube  or  the  superfice  ?  Is  it  not 
true  that,  in  my  painful  and  steady  gaze  at  this 
thing,  I  shut  out  both  reflection  and  anticipa- 
tion, and  forget,  that,  with  an  assurance -as  much 
deeper  as  I  am  more  than  the  leaf,  I  may  be  sure, 
that  what  I  call  fading  and  falling  in  is  also 
ripening  and  gathering ;  and  the  time  for  the 
true  life  to  be  gathered,  whenever  it  may  be,  is 
that  life's  October,  and  as  divine  in  its  way  as 
the  May  was  for  its  spring? 

Bec.ause  this  truth  is  one  with  a  vaster ;  namely, 
that  not  one  aspect  in  life  ought  to  fill  my  sight 
to  the  exclusion  of  another,  but  life  altogether 
must  be  seen  as  we  watch  men  fade  and  fall. 
"  All  leaves  are  builders,"  says  Ruskin ;  "  but 
they  are  to  be  divided  into  two  orders,  —  those 
that  build  Dy  the  sword,  and  those  that  build  by 
the  shield."  I  would  see  every  life  as  that  most 
perfect  of  all  seers  into  leaf-life  sees  every  leaf. 
It  may  be  that  our  lives  are  the  most  obscure  and 
powerless  for  good  this  earth  ever  bore  on  her 
breast :  I  tell  you,  if  we  are  trying  to  be  what 
we  can  be,  then  the  life  of  every  one  of  us  casts 


WHAT    A    LEAF    SAID.  37 

its,  speck  of  grateful  shadow  somewhere,  holds 
itself  somehow  up  to  the  sun  and  rain,  fights  its 
way  with  some  poor  success  against  storm  and 
fire  and  foe  and  parasite  ;  or  it  stands  sternly,  in 
these  great  days,  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  its 
comrades,  a  strong  tower  of  defence,  to  guard 
what  we  have  won  in  our  war  for  humanity, 
resolute  not  to  fall  into  that  trap  the  devil  always 
sets  for  a  generous  people,  of  giving  up  in  the 
treaty  what  they  won  in  the  fight.  For  it  is  true, 
and  truest  of  all,  that  not  the  things  which  satisfy 
the  world's  heart  easily ;  not  purple  grape,  and 
golden  apple,  and  ripe  grain,  and  brown  seed, 
and  roses  and  asters ;  not  the  noble  and  beauti- 
ful, over  which  men  rejoice  and  are  glad, —  are 
alone  the  fruit  on  the  tree  of  life ;  but  the  leaf, 
faded,  ragged  and  unnoticed,  is  fruit  too ;  falling, 
when  its  day  is  done,  it  falls  honorably ;  dying,  it 
dies  well ;  its  work  well  done,  and  the  world  is 
better  by  the  measure  of  what  one  poor  leaf  may 
do  for  its  life. 

All  honor  to  the  great  men  who  so  patiently 
and  steadily  broke  through  the  triple  armor  that 
guarded  the  heart  of  the  rebellion;  sprang  over 
the  fastnesses  of  Georgia  to  paralyze   its  right 


±'1722 


38  WHAT   A   LEAF   SAID. 

hand,  and  swept  bareheaded  through  the  broken 
^aiiks  of  our  men,  shouting  our  battle-cry  so 
grandly,  that  they  went  storming  back  like  a 
whirlwind  when  they  heard  it,  and  wrenched 
a  victory  out  of  the  very  jaws  of  defeat !  And 
honor  to  the  man  whose  heart  was  quiet  in 
the  dreadful  days  of  the  Wilderness,  when  only 
a  quiet  heart  and  a  mighty,  with  God's  great 
blessing,  could  avail  us  !  Above  all,  honor  to 
the  great,  steady  soul,  whose  counsel  guided, 
whose  truth  moulded,  whose  devotion  sanctified, 
and  whose  life  and  death  made  glorious,  the  land 
that  had  given  him  birth,  and  honored  him,  and 
elected  him  to  the  greatest  place  a  man  can  fill ! 
These  men,  and  all  like  them,  are  fruit.  Let 
their  names  be  said  and  sung  in  every  loyal  heart 
and  home,  and  written  in  letters  of  living  light 
for  men  to  read  in  the  ages  to  come. 

Ay,  but  I  know  of  others  as  good  and  true. 
Leaves,  nothing  but  leaves.  They  were  swept 
down  in  the  storms  of  battle,  they  withered  in 
the  swamps  and  the  sun,  they  faded  out  of  our 
homes  and  are  dead ;  or  they  live  and  strive, 
cnsting  their  shield,  standing  close,  working  the 
work   of  Him   that    sent  them.      All   honor   to 


WHAT   A   LEAF   SAID.  39 

the  common  soldier,  the  common  laborer,  the 
poor  teacher,  the  man  and  woman  everywhere, 
unknown  and  yet  well  known,  — with  no  name  to 
live,  but  bearing,  in  all  they  are  and  all  they 
do,  the  assurance  of  the  life  everlasting !  For  as 
every  leaf  on  every  tree  is,  by  the  tenure  of  its 
life,  a  mediator  and  saviour,  standing  between 
the  hard  rock  and  living  man,  the  bridge  between 
life  and  death, —  so  this  unknown  man  or  woman, 
this  common  soldier  or  common  worker,  is  fruit, 
in  being  leaf  and  falling,  scorched  by  battle-fires 
or  chilled  by  night  damps ;  or,  dying,  worn  out 
by  toiling  in  the  field  of  the  world.  Not  one  such 
man  or  woman  has  lived  and  striven  and  died  in 
vain.  There  may  be  no  monument  to  tell  how 
they  died  or  where  they  rest ;  but  what  they  have 
done  is  their  monument.  The  leaves  of  their 
tree  are  for  the  healing  of  the  nations. 

Mother,  you  think  the  little  one  that  was  taken 
from  yon  could  be  nothing  to  the  world ;  it  faded 
bo  soon.  Do  sure,  the  leaf  that  lives  only  for  a 
day  is  something  to  the  tree  ;  it  has  not  lived  in 
vain.  This  had  been  a  poorer  world,  had  any 
leaf  of  a  day  never  bloomed ;  and  so  your  little 
child  has  not  only  made  you  a  richer  woman  than 


40  WHAT   A  LEAF   SAID. 

you  possibly  could  have,  been  had  it  never  been 
born,  but  its  touch  of  bloom  has  helped  the 
world  to  bloom.  It  did  not  fall,  as  it  could  not 
spring,  without  the  will  of  our  Father ;  and,  if 
you  did  but  know  it,  its  autumn  was  as  true  as 
its  spring,  and  both  were  included  in  its  few  brief 
moments  of  life. 

And  this  is  the  way  the  lesson  of  the  leaf 
comes  home  to  us  all.  We  see  about  us  other 
lives,  noble  and  fruitful ;  and  say,  "  If  I  could 
only  do  as  that  man  or  woman  is  doing ;  if  I 
could  accomplish  some  great  thing  that  would  be 
a  world's  wonder  and  blessing,  —  then,  I  think, 
I  could  die  gladly.  But  the  Master  comes,  seek- 
ing fruit  and  finding  none.  I  plod  on  at  my 
desk ;  I  work  in  my  home ;  I  weary  at  my  task, 
—  unknown,  unnoticed,  unprofitable,  and  no- 
body." Well,  my  friend,  I  think  discontent  is 
as  good  a  tiling  in  its  place  as  life  has  in  its  treas- 
ury. If  you  are  young,  there  is  probably  hope 
for  you  in  something  like  the  measure  of  your 
discontent ;  and,  if  you  are  not  young,  that  dis- 
content is  always  good  which  can  bring  you  into 
a  larger  activity.  I  know  not  but  it  is  good  to  be 
always  a  little  discontented.      It  is  a  sign,  as 


WHAT    A    LEAF    SAID.  41 

when  the  dove  fluttered  to  the  window  of  the  ark, 
that  there  are  olive  leaves  outside  for  the  pluck- 
ing. Still,  I  tell  you,  the  question  for  most  of  us 
to  solve  is  not,  Am  I  fruit?  but  Am  I  a  leaf?  I 
take  it,  if  we  are  to  be  fruit,  we  shall  be  by  some 
deep  predestination ;  and  what  we  shall  have  to 
do  in  that  case  will  be  to  keep  as  sound  as  we 
can  to  the  core.  But,  if  I  am  not  fruit,  then 
I  am  leaf;  and  leaf  is  fruit  in  its  own  order. 
Do  I  cast  a  mite  of  shadow  ;  do  I  beautify  ever 
so  small  a  piece  of  blank  barrenness ;  do  I  help 
along,  in  the  measure  of  my  one-leaf  power, 
in  forming,  if  not  fruit,  then  timber?  because, 
this  question  answered  right,  I  have  answered 
every  other. 

Let  me  make  this  sure  ;  and  then  I  may  be 
sure  of  this  also,  that  the  nipping  frosts  of  the 
autumn,  when  they  come,  will  be  as  divine  to  me 
as  the  dewy  splendors  of  June.  A  fulling  leaf,  I 
shall  fall  honorably  ;  and  the  spirit,  returning 
to  the  God  who  gave  it,  will  again  be  set  to  do  the 
greatest,  and  by  consequence  the  most  blessed, 
thing  it  can  do;  while  this  frame,  the  faded  Leaf, 
will  wait  for  the  morning  of  its  resurrection.  For 
this  corruptible   shall   put  on   incorniption,  and 


42  "WHAT    A    LEAF    SAID. 

this  mortal  immortality.  And  when  a  man 
reaches  this  faith,  he  will  not  fear  death  any 
more  than  he  fears  life :  — 

"  Fear  death !  to  feel  the  fog  at  my  throat, 

The  mist  on  my  face, 
When  the  snows  begin,  and  the  blasts  denote 

I  am  nearing  the  place; 
The  power  of  the  night,  the  press  of  the  storm, 

The  post  of  the  foe, — 
Where  he  stands,  the  arch  fear,  in  a  visible  form, 

And  the  strong  man  must  go ! 
No ;  let  me  feel  all  of  it ;  fare  like  my  peers 

Who  have  met  him  of  old; 
Bear  the  brunt ;  in  a  moment  pay  life's  whole  arrears 

Of  pain,  darkness,  and  cold: 
For  sudden  the  worst  turns  the  best  to  the  brave. 

The  dark  minutes  at  end, 
Then  the  elements  rage ;  and  the  voices  that  rave 

Shall  soften  and  blend, — 
Shall  change,  and  become, 

First  a  peace,  then  a  joy,  then  thy  breast. 
0  thou  soul  of  my  soul,  I  shall  meet  thee  again, 

And  with  God  be  the  rest ! 


III. 

THE  TREASURES  OF  THE  SNOW. 

Meditating  through  the  week  what  I  should 
say  to  you  to-day,  my  mind  at  last  began  to  turn 
steadily  toward  the  snow  that  was  falling  all  day 
long  between  the  window  where  I  sat  and  my 
church,  covering  the  city  with  its  white  robe  to 
be  instantly  soiled  and  torn,  and  casting  an 
unspotted  radiance  over  hundreds  of  miles  of  the 
land  through  which  also  it  was  my  lot  to  travel. 
So  I  gradually  became  aware,  that  to-day  I 
must  speak  to  you  about  the  snow,  and  its  place 
in  the  world  and  life  in  which  we  are  now  wit- 
nessing its  presence,  —  see  what  hint  of  the  Di- 
vine blessing  is  revealed  to  us  in  this  fair  ves- 
ture of  the  winter,  —  the  delight  of  our  youth, 
the  touching  image  of  the  white  age  before  the 
opening  of  a  new  spring,  and  the  fair  shroud, 
that,  in  the  black  winter  days,  covers  all   the 

graves , 

143] 


44  TREASURES   OP   THE   SNOW. 

I  read  a  story  once  of  what  had  happened  just 
before  in  one  of  the  new  English  colonies.  It 
was  a  land  where  the  snow  fell  but  seldom.  The 
children  had  grown  up  to  a  good  age,  without 
once  seeing  it.  One  day,  the  thick  flakes  began 
to  fall ;  the  children  were  terrified ;  they  shrank 
back  from  it,  —  did  not  know  what  to  make  of 
it :  but  the  parents  ran  out  to  welcome  what  it 
was  the  first  impulse  of  the  children  to  fear. 
The  unknown  wonder  of  the  one  was  the  wel- 
come visitor  of  the  otiier,  bringing  hosts  of 
kindly  memories.  It  melted  as  it  fell,  was 
what  we  now  watch  with  disgust  on  sloppy  days, 
and  call  neither  one  thing  nor  the  other.  But, 
as  these  men  and  women  saw  the  feathery  fleece 
falling  for  the  first  time  in  their  new  home  on 
the  other  side  of  the  world,  it  seemed  to  bring  the 
blessing  of  the  old  home  on  its  wings,  to  make 
their  past  and  present  more  intimately  one.  It 
was  a  means  of  grace  to  them :  it  came  down  cold 
out  of  the  heavens  ;  but  their  hearts  became  all 
aglow,  as  it  touched  them. 

I  had  written  as  far  as  this,  when  a  lady  came 
to  my  study,  and  I  read  the  incident  to  her.  — 
"  I  know  something  as  good  as  that,"  she  said.    "  I 


TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW.  45 

had  a  friend  who  went  south,  out  of  the  reach  of 
the  snow,  lived  there  many  years,  and  then  came 
north  again.  When  the  first  snow  fell  after  her 
return,  she  ran  out  to  meet  it  with  all  the  delight 
of  a  child,  caught  a  flake  in  her  hand,  and  kissed 
it."  A  flake  in  her  hand  to  kiss,  —  she  could 
not  resist  the  impulse.  It  was  an  old  friend  she 
had  nearly  forgotten,  as  welcome  as  the,  flowers 
in  May.  The  philosopher  could  tell  her,  to  be 
sure,  that  this  was  not  the  snow  that  used  to  fall 
about  the  old  homestead.  She  knew  better:  it 
was  the  same  snow,  because  she  was  the  same 
woman :  the  identity  was  in  her  own  nature. 
It  was  a  hint  of  that  better  life  to  come,  in 
which  we  are  not  to  reckon  by  then  and  now, 
by  past  and  present,  —  what  was,  and  is  not, 
and  never  can  be  again ;  but  by  an  eternal 
now,  fresh  and  full  as  the  heart  of  a  great 
ocean. 

It  is  notable  that  there  is  but  one  instance  of 
an  actual  snow-fall  in  the  Bible  ;  and  even  that  is 
rather  a  recollection  than  a  record.  It  is  in  the 
Second  Book  of  Samuel,  where,  speaking  of  a 
mighty  man,  the  chronicler  says  he  slew  a  lion  in 
the  midst  of  a  pit,  in  the  time  of  snow.     If  the 


46  TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW. 

man  and  the  lion  were  in  the  pit  together,  it  was 
a  fine  piece  of  valor ;  but  if  it  was  done  as  the 
same  thing  is  done  now  in  Africa,  where  a  pit  is 
dug  into  which  the  lion  falls  and  then  is  killed 
from  above,  one  cannot  but  think,  that  the  lion 
might  have  had  more  to  say  about  it,  had  the 
thing  been  done  on  the  open  plain  and  in 
warm  weather.  In  the  poetry  of  the  elder  Scrip- 
tures, the  references  to  the  snow  are  far  more 
thick-strewn  than  in  the  histories,  showing  how 
the  presence  of  the  white  glory  melted  into 
the  souls  of  those  most  open  to  all  the  influ- 
ences of  heaven,  summer  and  winter  alike. 
"  Hast  thou  entered  into  the  treasures  of  the 
snow  ? "  the  Almighty  is  made  to  ask  impatient 
Job.  And  Job  himself  uses  the  term  three 
times,  always,  however,  in  the  sense  of  melting 
or  melted  snow,  as  if  the  man  had  not  come  into 
actual  contact  with  it,  but  had  seen  it,  as  I 
saw  it,  melting  and  pouring  from  the  mountains 
in  Switzerland  under  the  August  sun.  In  the 
Psalms  there  is  an  exquisite  hint  of  a  snow-fall 
through  the  perfect  stillness,  and  a  magnificent 
storm  piece  into  which  the  snow  comes  with 
other  elements.     In  the  Proverbs,  again,  there  is 


TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW.  47 

a  passage,  how  that  there  is  nothing  new  under 
the  sun,  in  the  matter  of  ice-cold  drinks  in  sum- 
mer, where  the  writer  says,  "  As  the  cold  of  snow 
in  the  time  of  harvest,  so  a  faithful  servant  re- 
freshes the  soul  of  his  master  ;  "  from  which  wc 
may  also  infer,  that  even  Solomon,  in  all  his  glory, 
had  trouble  with  his  servants.  Isaiah  has  a  noble 
image  of  the  truth  falling  softly  and  fruitening 
the  heart,  as  the  snow  falls  and  fruitens  the 
earth.  There  is  not  a  word  about  the  snow  from 
the  lips  of  the  Saviour  ;  and  it  is  only  noticed  at 
all  in  the  New  Testament  in  a  secondary  sense, 
—  used  as  a  comparison,  never  as  an  experience. 
But  to  men  that  dwell,  as  we  do,  where  the 
snow  is  our  constant  companion  through  a  long 
winter,  there  is  both  opportunity  and  necessity 
to  enter  more  deeply  into  its  meaning,  than  any 
men  have  ever  done  who  have  only  seen  it  at 
second-hand,  crowning  Hermon  with  its  radiance, 
and  lying  white  in  the  ravines  of  Lebanon.  Wc 
can  see,  if  we  will,  how  there  is  that  in  it  which 
at  once  illustrates  the  law,  supplements  the  gos- 
pel, and  reveals  the  Almighty  as  intimately  and 
wonderfully  present  in  the  snows  of  winter  as 
in  the  blossoms  of  spring,  or   the  greenery  of 


48  TREASURES   OP  THE   SNOW. 

summer,  or  the  gold  of  the  autumn  of  the  year. 
When  John  Foster  learned  that  snow  had  been 
detected  on  the  poles  of  Mars,  the  white  light  of 
it  growing  large  in  what  must  be  the  planet's 
winter,  and  then  small  again  in  his  summer,  it 
made  him  very  sad.  He  argued,  that  the  pres- 
ence of  the  snow  meant  cold ;  cold,  suffering ; 
suffering,  sin;  and  sin,  on  another  planet, — 
a  frightful  extension  of  the  curse  and  fall.  It 
made  him  sad,  because,  great  man  as  he  was, 
he  lived  in  the  belief  that  this  fair  world  was 
wrecked  and  ruined  in  the  biting  of  an  apple ; 
that  a  man  and  woman,  as  inexperienced  as  two 
babies,  were  placed  in  a  position  to  do  a  mischief 
for  which  I  am  at  a  loss  to  find  a  comparison.  I 
thought  of  myself  as  placing  my  five-year-old 
boy  on  the  locomotive  of  a  great  train,  and  giv- 
ing him  the  lever,  with  a  strong  temptation  to 
turn  it,  and  a  strict  command  to  let  it  alone ; 
then  leaving  him  to  his  own  devices,  and  the  pas- 
sengers to  their  doom.  But  the  illustration  is 
too  feeble  to  convey  the  idea  of  the  common 
doctrine  of  the  Fall.  It  was  the  man's  misfor- 
tune, that,  otherwise  so  great  and  good,  he  could 
permit  his  soul  to  be  bolted  fast  in  a  prison  so 


TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW.  49 

dark,  that  the  very  stars  in  heaven  were  no  bet- 
ter to  him  than  a  great  penitentiary  and  grave- 
yard. 

"  There  is  no  such  thing  in  nature  as  bad 
weather,"  James  Hogg  used  to  say ;  and  cer- 
tainly he  got  his  share  of  all  the  weathers 
possible  to  the  bleak  moorlands  of  Scotland : 
and  Coleridge  said,  "  In  nature  there  is  nothing 
melancholy."  And  both  philosopher  and  shep- 
herd, in  saying  such  things,  touched  the  brighter 
and  better  belief,  dawning  now  on  the  world  in 
the  liberal  faith.  That  the  snow  was  on  Hermon 
when  Adam  was  in  Eden  before  the  Fall,  —  did 
not  come  for  a  curse  there  or  anywhere,  but  a 
blessing ;  not  to  work  ruin  on  the  snow-line  of 
Ararat,  any  more  than  on  the  wheat-fields  of 
Wisconsin ;  and  is  as  innocent  of  our  sins,  this 
way  or  that,  as  the  white  robe  of  an  angel.  And 
so  the  whole  drift  of  our  discovery  of  the  nature 
of  the  snow,  is  at  the  same  time  a  revelation  of 
its  grace  and  goodness. 

I  look  out  of  my  window  at  the  whirling  tem- 
pest, or  set  my  face  against  it  grimly  on  the  street, 
or  see  it  descending  and  covering  a  hundred 
leagues  of  wintry  land ;  and  shudder,  if  I  am  in 
3 


50  TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW. 

a  shuddering  mood,  and  say,  "  God  help  the 
poor ! "  and  am,  perhaps,  content  enough  to  let 
God  help  them,  as  I  creep  hack  into  my  own  snug 
nest.  But,  while  I  am  sheltering  there,  let  me 
take  Scoresby's  book  on  the  Arctic  Regions,  or 
Glaisher's  book  on  the  Snow,  and  watch,  to  my 
endless  wonder,  what  beauty  is  in  a  snow-flake. 

That  is  not  a  rack  of  whirling  wintry  chaos 
I  see !  —  the  churning  of  wind  and  water  and 
frost  into  a  white  fury ;  the  desolation  of  a  world 
in  which  God  is  not.  There  is  not  an  atom  of 
snow  in  this  whole  wide  belt  of  the  storm  that  is 
not  in  itself  a  gem  of  exquisite  outline  and  inline, 
not  any  two  of  those  innumerable  myriads  of 
flakes  alike,  and  yet  they  all  dart  out  into  the  same 
wonderful  six-rayed  glory.  I  may  grind  them,  if  I 
can,  into  a  more  impalpable  powder  than  this  into 
which  they  are  crushed  in  these  roaring  mills  of 
God ;  then  put  the  smallest  atom  under  my  micro- 
scope ;  and,  if  I  can  get  one  fair  glance  at  it,  I 
will  still  see  the  perfect  unlike  sixfold  likeness, 
no  more,  no  less,  as  inexhaustible  in  its  loveli- 
ness as  the  power  that  made  it.  So  the  flakes 
call  to  us  for  ever  through  the  moan  and  shriek 
of  the  storm,  or  whisper  as  they  fall  in  silence, 


TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW.  51 

and  rest  on  the  land'  like  wool,  "  Hast  thou  en- 
tered into  the  treasures  of  the  snow  ?  "  And  tell 
us  how  the  revelation  of  the  microscope  chords 
with  the  words  of  the  Master,  about  the  robing 
of  a  lily,  that,  down  to  the  minutest  and  most 
common  thing,  the  hand  of  their  Maker  and  our 
Father  reaches,  as  perfectly  as  up  to  the  most 
celestial  and  divine.  It  is  disorder  to  us;  it  is 
order  to  him.  He  directs  the  storm.  Snow  and 
hail,  fire  and  vapor,  and  stormy  wind,  fulfil  his 
word.  Not  a  sparrow  or  a  snow-flake  falleth  to 
the  ground  without  the  will  of  your  Father.  I 
ask  the  star,  as  it  melts  on  my  hand,  "  What 
proof  can  you  give  me  that  you  are  not  born  of 
the  mere  spume  of  the  tempest  ?  "  It  looks  at  me 
from  beneath  its  six-rayed  crown,  and  answers, 
"  I  am  no  more  that  than  the  Atlantic.  I  come 
out  of  order  and  light,  a  child  of  the  day.  I  am 
on  the  Lord's  side.  I  come  from  heaven,  as  the 
good  angels  come,  to  assure  you  afresh  of  its 
immanence,  and  help  you  to  enter  in  and  be 
saved." 

Then  this  beauty  chords  again  with  the  blessing 
of  the  snow.  In  great  cities  we  think  little  of 
snow,   except    as    it   brings    good    sleighing    or 


52  TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW. 

evil  walking,  or  the  threat  of  the  policeman  if  we 
do  not  clean  our  sidewalks,  or  thin  congregations, 
or  discomfort  to  our  feet,  or  irregular  mails  and 
trains.  Indeed  I  doubt  whether  the  snow  was 
ever  meant  for  the  city.  It  is  as  thoroughly  out 
of  contrast  in  it  as  a  stray  lamb,  and  has  no  more 
power  to  hold  its  white  fleece  whole,  and  live 
on  our  streets.  But,  in  the  country,  we  instantly 
find  what  this  means :  "  He  giveth  snow  like 
wool."  Between  the  surface  of  the  earth  and 
the  surface  of  the  snow,  the  measured  difference 
in  temperature  is  sometimes  forty  degrees.  It  is 
always  welcome  in  these  latitudes,  when  it  comes 
early  and  in  plenty,  and  stays  well  on  the  land ; 
for  then  the  farmer  knows  that  the  things  will  be 
happed  away  snug  and  warm,  that  must  survive 
the  winter.  In  the  Lake-Superior  region,  much 
colder  than  our  own,  —  where  the  snow  falls  with 
the  first  frosts,  and  stays  to  the  edge  of  summer, 
—  many  of  the  plants  we  dig  up,  and  put  into 
our  cellars,  are  left  in  the  ground  with  perfect 
safety,  because  "  He  giveth  snow  like  wool " 
to  preserve  them  under  its  warm  fleece.  In  my 
readings,  I  have  found  many  curious  records  of 
persons  buried  under  the  snow,  surviving  through 


TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW.  53 

long  spans  of  time  ;  but,  if  a  hand  or  a  foot  was 
exposed,  that  was  lost. 

When  I  was  at  Fort  Donelson,  and  there  heard 
that  grand  story,  how  the  Iowa  Second  went 
over  the  ramparts,  and  stayed,  sleeping  all  night 
in  the  snow,  my  informant  said,  "  I  looked  along 
the  line  where  I  knew  they  must  be  next  morn- 
ing ;  but  all  I  could  see  was  a  row  of  white 
mounds,  out  of  which  they  rose  presently,  shak- 
ing the  snow  from  their  blankets,  and  resuming 
order  of  battle."  —  "  And  was  it  not  a  fearful  thing 
to  lie  under  that  covering  ?  "  I  said  to  one  of  the" 
men  afterward.  "  Well,"  he  replied,  "  it  wasn't 
quite  so  warm  as  some  places  I  have  slept  in : 
still  it  was  not  at  all  so  bad  as  you  imagine." 

The  snow  is,  in  its  measure,  the  power  of 
God  unto  salvation.  It  is  not  an  aggravation 
of  winter,  but  a  defence  against  it.  Philoso- 
phy blends  with  science  to  tell  of  its  grace  and 
goodness.  We  talk  to  our  children  of  the  good 
fairies,  in  which,  alas  for  them !  they  believe  no 
more  than  we  do.  We  might  do  better,  if  we 
told  them  the  truth  about  such  a  thing  as  the 
snow,  —  how  God  sends,  in  the  snow-flakes,  a 
guardian  angel  for  every  grass-blade  and  flower- 


54  .     TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW. 

seed  he  will  keep  from  the  frost,  to  protect  them 
first,  and  then  to  sink  into  their  hearts,  and  rise 
with  them  in  the  morning  of  their  resurrection. 
And  then  I  would  try  to  see  what  I  taught,  —  the 
goodness  of  God  in  a  snow-storm.  It  is  some- 
thing to  see,  for  one  hour,  a  snow-driven  city, — 
to  admire  how  all  the  vileness  is  hidden  for  a  few 
minutes  out  of  sight,  though  there  were  no  use 
except  that  in  it.  But,  in  the  country,  the  snow 
casting  its  white  robe  of  protection  over  the  land, 

—  gathering  it  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens 
under  her  wings,  —  that  is  a  sight  which  leads  us 
again  toward  the  heaven  out  of  which  the  wonder 
comes.  And  so  I  would  touch  these  snow-flakes 
less  for  what  they  prove  than  for  what  they  are, 

—  the  testimony  of  a  snow-drift  to  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount ;  the  extension  of  Christ's  great 
argument  out  of  summer  into  winter.  If 
God  so  shape  the  snow-star,  can  he  fail  finally 
to  shape  the  soul  ?  and  if  he  giveth  snow  like 
wool,  to  hap  the  shivering  seed ;  if  he  so  clothe 
the  land  as  well  as  the  lily,  —  will  he  leave  me 
naked  ? 

But  then  I  can  see  how  the  blessing  of  the 
snow  comes  home  still  more  nearly  and  directly. 


TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW.  55 

It  is  good  to  watch  the  snow,  as  I  have  tried  to 
do ;  to  note  — 

"  The  tiny  spherule  traced  with  lines 
Of  nature's  geometric  signs;  " 

and  what  an  exact  order  and  harmony  is  at  the 
heart  of  the  endless  agitation  of  a  snow-storm ; 
and  to  realize  something  of  the  blessing  that 
comes  when  "  He  giveth  snow  like  wool."  But 
there  is  a  better  blessing  in  the  snow,  that  can 
come  to  us  all,  though  we  never  saw  a  microscope 
or  snow  book,  and  know  of  the  thing  only  as 
something  thoroughly  identified  with  winter. 

"I  think  better  of  snow-storms,"  Prescott 
says,  "  since  I  find,  that,  though  they  keep  a 
man's  body  indoors,  they  bring  his  mind  out." 
It  has  been  said  by  another,  that,  while  the  land 
is  more  fruitful  as  you  approach  the  tropics,  what 
is  taken  out  of  the  land  is  put  into  the  man  as 
you  touch  the  snow.  In  Iceland,  where  they  are 
shut  out  from  the  rest  of  the  world  through  the 
greater  part  of  the  year,  and  — 

"  The  housemates  sit 
Around  the  radiant  fireplace,  enclosed 
In  a  tumultuous  privacy  of  storm,"  — 

there  has  been  a  separate,  and  in  its  way  quite  a 
noble,  scholarship,  to  which  we  owe  the  preserva- 


56  TEEASURES   OF  THE   SNOW. 

tion  of  some  of  the  most  precious  Sagas,  frag- 
ments of  the  earliest  history  of  our  own  race.  If 
you  will  draw  a  line  from  Edinburgh  southward 
until  it  touches  just  half-way  in  the  measured 
distance  of  England  and  Scotland  together,  and 
then  count  the  greatest  names  in  each  half  for  a 
long  time  back  now,  —  Burns,  Scott,  Wordsworth, 
Watt,  Arkwright,  and  the  Stephensons,  with 
others  more  than  I  can  mention,  —  you  will  see, 
that,  though  London  and  the  Universities  are  to 
the  south  of  the  line,  the  preponderance  of  genius 
and  power  is  to  the  north ;  especially  in  those 
priceless  instances  of  men  who  had  to  cleave 
their  way  upward  out  of  the  forge,  coal-pit,  and 
hungry  farm-lands,  to  fame. 

In  our  own  country,  this  fact  is  still  more 
striking  and  clear.  Whatever  line  can  live  in 
our  literature,  so  far  has  been  written  in  the 
North.  The  most  precious  fruits  in  all  the  higher 
departments  of  life  and  learning  have  ripened 
within  the  snow-line.  Nay,  it  is  remarkable,  that 
in  the  thin  edge  of  land  between  Cincinnati  or  St. 
Louis  and  our  own  city,  there  is  this  difference, 
that,  in  the  gravest  times  this  nation  has  ever 
known,  the  great  ballads,  whose   influence   for 


TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW.  07 

good  was  incalculable,  —  ballads  like  the  "  Battle- 
cry  of  Freedom,"  —  came  from  the  city  that  is 
set  farthest  in  the  snow.  I  mention  these  in- 
stances as  hints  of  what  I  mean  by  that  better 
blessing  in  the  snow  than  the  contemplation  of 
its  starry  order  and  noble  uses  as  it  lies  on  the 
land.  What  every  healthy  man  and  woman  feels, 
when,  after  the  disheartening  rains  of  the  last 
weeks  in  the  autumn,  the  first  powder  of  the 
white  blessing  falls  ;  and  then,  as  winter  deepens, 
the  snow  comes  in  good  earnest,  and  — 

"  The  whited  air 
Hides  hills  and  woods,  the  river  and  the  heaven,"  — 

that  is  the  intimation  of  the  difference  between 
the  snow  present  in,  and  absent  from,  our  life. 

So  when  I  hear  letters  read  from  friends  in 
the  South,  that  tell  how,  while  we  are  battling 
with  the  snow,  they  are  enjoying  the  roses,  I 
say,  "  Well,  the  rose  had  to  come  out  of  the 
snow.  It  is  not  a  native  and  natural  denizen  of 
•the  southern,  but  of  the  northern,  hemisphere." 
That  is  true  for  one  thing.  And  then  we  shall 
have  the  roses,  and  we  have  the  snow.  Those 
dwellers  in  summer  lands  have  the  one  blessing ; 
we  have  both.    What  can  they  do  when  the  ques 


58  TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW. 

tion  is  asked  of  them,  "  Hast  thou  entered  into 
the  treasures  of  the  snow?"  but  stand  silent 
and  conscious  of  their  poverty,  if  they  will  but 
have  the  grace  ?  For,  not  to  dwell  on  that  hearty 
and  healthful  recreation,  only  possible  to  a  few 
of  the  dwellers  in  cities,  —  the  pleasantness  of 
sweeping  through  the  snow  in  sleighs  and  good 
company,  a  means  of  grace  by  no  means  to  be 
despised,  providing  always  that  the  termination 
of  your  ride  be  not  a  tavern,  —  not  to  dwell  on 
this,  I  say,  the  man  whose  lot  is  cast  where  the 
roses  bloom  outdoors  in  January  might  well  ex- 
change his  roses  for  the  final  blessing  that  comes 
hidden  in  the  snow. 

When,  on  the  edge  of  a  wild  winter  night,  the 
snow  begins  to  come  down  thick  and  fast,  dark- 
ening the  heavens,  covering  the  earth,  muffling 
all  sounds,  foiling  all  sights  ;  when  the  children 
rush  home  from  school,  and  the  father  from  busi- 
ness, and  the  shutters  are  fastened,  and  the  cur- 
tains are  drawn,  and  the  supper  is  done,  and  the 
clear,  open,  wood  or  soft-coal  fire  is  made  up,  — 
for  one  or  the  other  of  these  I  consider  entirely 
indispensable  to  a  right  study  of  the  treasures 
of  the  snow,  —  and  all   sit  in   the  sweet  light 


TREASURES  OP  THE   SNOW.  59 

together,  and  try  to  remember  one  sick  or  poor 
for  whom  they  have  not  done  what  they  could, 
but  are  utterly  unable ;  and  the  books  are  brought 
out,  and  the  work,  which,  to  be  seasonable  at 
such  a  time,  should  be  just  as  good  as  play ; 
and  there  is  cheerful  chat  among  the  elders  of 
far-away  times,  and  prophecy  among  the  youth 
of  what  shall  be,  to  be  fulfilled  as  God  will  and 
as  they  will ;  while  still  the  snow  falls  and  beats 
about  the  home,  and  hisses  down  into  the  fire ; 
and  the  heart  grows  tender  in  its  thankfulness, 
reaching  out  into  the  very  wilderness,  and  cry- 
ing with  Burns,  — 

"  Ilk  happing  bird,  wee,  helpless  thing, 
That,  in  the  merry  months  o'  spring, 
Delighted  us  to  hear  thee  sing,  — 

What  comes  o'  thee? 
Whaur  wilt  thou  cower  thy  chittering  wing, 

And  close  thy  ee  ?  "  — 

these,  friends,  are  some  of  the  treasures  of  the 
snow,  as  they  lie  most  obviously  open  to  our  rev- 
erent study,  inestimable,  in  their  way,  as  the 
blossoms  of  the  spring,  the  flowers  of  the  sum- 
mer, and  the  fruit  of  the  autumn  of  the  year. 

It  might  be  expected  that  I  should  now  make 
an  application  :  I  have  none  to  make.    One  thing 


(30  TREASURES   OF   THE   SNOW. 

only  I  can  touch  of  the  deeper  spirit,  beside  what 
I  have  touched  as  I  have  gone  along.  We  speak 
of  the  snow  as  of  an  image  of  death.  It  may  be 
that ;  but  it  hides  the  everlasting  life  always 
under  its  robe,  —  the  life  to  be  revealed  in  due 
time,  when  all  cold  shadows  shall  melt  away 
before  the  ascending  sun,  and  we  shall  be,  not 
unclothed,  but  clothed  upon,  and  mortality  shall 
be  swallowed  up  of  life. 

Jan.  26, 1867. 


IV. 

LIGHT  ON  A  HIDDEN  WAY. 

Job  iii.  23 :  "  Why  is  light  given  to  a  man  whose  way  is  hid  ?  " 

"  The  Book  of  Job,"  says  Thomas  Carlyle,  "  is 
one  of  the  grandest  things  ever  written  with  a 
pen  ;  our  first  statement,  in  books,  of  the  problem 
of  the  destiny  of  man,  and  the  way  God  takes 
with  him  on  this  earth ;  grand  in  its  simplicity 
and  epic  melody,  sublime  in  its  sorrow  and  rec- 
onciliation ;  a  choral  melody,  old  as  the  heart  of 
"man,  soft  as  the  summer  midnight,  wonderful  as 
the  world  with  its  seas  and  stars  ;  and  there  is 
no  other  thing  in  the  Bible,  or  out  of  it,  of  equal 
literary  merit."  It  is  not  possible  now  to  tell 
whether  the  book  is  a  real  history,  or  a  sort  of 
oriental  drama.  The  question  is  one  that  will 
always  keep  the  critics  hard  at  work,  so  long  as 
there  are  rational,  and  what  ought  in  all  fairness 
to  be  called  not  rational,  schools  in  theology.  My 
own  idea  is,  that  the  rude  outline  of  the  history 

r°ii 


62  LIGHT   ON   A   HIDDEN   WAY. 

was  floating  about  the  desert,  as  the  history  of 
Lear  or  Macbeth  floated  about  in  later  times 
among  our  own  fore-elders  ;  that,  like  those  great 
dramas,  it  was  taken  into  the  heart  of  some  man 
now  forgotten,  and  came  out  again  endowed  with 
this  wondrous  quality  of  inspiration  and  life,  that 
.  will  bear  it  onward  through  all  time.  But,  what- 
ever the  truth  may  be  in  this  direction,  this  is 
clear,  that,  when  Job  put  the  question  I  have 
taken  for  a  text,  he  was  as  far  down  in  the  world 
as  a  man  can  be  who  is  not  abased  by  sin.  He 
had  been  the  richest  man  in  the  country,  hon- 
ored by  all  that  knew  him,  for  his  wisdom,  his 
goodness,  or  his  money.  He  was  now  so  poor, 
that  he  says,  men  derided  him  whose  fathers  he 
would  not  have  set  with  the  dogs  of  his  flock. ' 
He  had  been  a  sound,  healthy  man,  full  of 
human  impulses  and  activities ;  had  been  sight 
to  the  blind,  feet  to  the  lame,  a  father  to  the  poor, 
a  defender  of  the  oppressed.  He  was  now  a 
diseased  and  broken  man,  sitting  on  the  ashes  of 
a  ruined  home ;  his  fires  all  gone  out ;  his  house- 
hold gods  all  shattered ;  his  children  all  dead ; 
and  his  wife,  the  mother  of  his  ten  children,  lost 
to  the  mighty  love  which  will  take  ever  so  deli- 


LIGHT   ON   A    HIDDEN   WAY.  63 

cate  but  true-hearted  woman  at  such  a  time,  and 
make  her  a  tower  of  strength  to  the  man.  His 
wife  —  who  should  have  stood,  as  the  angels 
stand,  at  once  by  his  side  and  above  him  —  turned 
on  him  in  his  uttermost  sorrow,  and  said,  "  Curse 
God,  and  die." 

Two  things,  in  this  sad  time,  seem  to  have 
smitten  Job  with  most  unconquerable  pain.  First, 
he  could  not  make  his  condition  chord  with  his 
conviction  of  what  ought  to  have  happened.  He 
had  been  trained  to  believe  in  the  axiom  we  put 
up  in  our  Sunday  schools,  that  to  be  good  is  to  be 
happy.  Now  he  had  been  good,  and  yet  here  he 
was  as  miserable  as  it  was  possible  for  a  man 
to  be.  And  the  worst  of  all  was,  he  could  not 
deaden  down  to  the  level  of  his  misery.  The 
light  given  him  on  the  divine  justice  would 
not  let  him  rest.  His  subtle  spirit,  piercing, 
restless,  dissatisfied,  tried  him  every  moment. 
Questions  like  these  came  up  in  his  mind  :  "  Why 
have  I  lost  my  money  ?  I  made  it  honestly,  and 
made  good  use  of  it.  Why  is  my  home  ruined  ? 
I  never  brought  upon  it  one  shadow  of  disgrace. 
Why  am  I  bereaven  of  my  children,  and  worse 
than  bereaven  of  my  wife  ?     If  this  is   the   re- 


64  LIGHT   ON   A    HIDDEN   WAY. 

suit  of  goodness,  where  is  cause  and  effect? 
What  is  there  to  hold  on  by,  if  all  this  misery 
and  mildew  can  come  of  upright,  downright 
truth  and  purity  ?  "  Questions  like  these  forced 
themselves  upon  him,  and  would  not  be  silenced. 
There  was  but  one  way  in  which  they  could  have 
been  silenced.  If  this  spirit  that  troubled  him 
could  have  whispered,  "  Now,  Job,  what  is  the 
use  of  your  whining  ?  You  know  that  you  have 
got  just  what  you  deserve  ;  that  you  are  a  poor, 
old  pewter  Pecksniff,  with  not  one  grain  of  real 
silver  about  you.  Your  whole  life  has  been  a 
sham.     You  have  said, — 

'  No  graven  images  may  be  worshipped, 
Save  in  the  currency ; 
Thou  shalt  not  kill,  but  need  not  strive 
Officiously  to  keep  alive ; 
*  Thou  shalt  not  covet,  but  tradition 

Approves  all  forms  of  competition.'  " 

If  the  spirit  could  have  spoken  so  to  the  man,  he 
must  have  been  dumb  under  a  sense  of  the  justice 
of  his  punishment ;  but  there  was  no  such  sense 
for  him :  his  entire  life  had  been  a  good  life,  and 
the  very  light  on  his  life  in  the  past  made  his 
present  way  only  all  the  darker. 

Then  the  second  element  in  Job's  misery  seems 
to  lie  in  the  fact,  that  there  appeared  to, be  light 


LIGHT   ON   A    HIDDEN   WAT.  65 

everywhere,  except  on  his  own  life.  If  life  would 
strike  a  fair  average ;  if  other  good  men  had 
Buffered  too,  or  even  bad  men,  —  then  he  could 
bear  it  better.  But  the  world  went  on  just  the 
same.  The  sun  shone  with  as  much  splendor 
as  on  his  wedding-day.  The  moon  poured  out 
her  tides  of  molten  gold,  night  fretted  the  blue 
vault  with  fires,  trees  blossomed,  birds  sang, 
young  men  and  maidens  danced  under  the  palms. 
Other  homes  were  full  of  gladness.  This  man 
had  sold  his  clip  for  a  great  price  :  the  light- 
ning had  slain  Job's  sheep.  That  man  had  done 
well  in  dates :  the  tornado  had  twisted  Job's  trees 
down.  Nay,  worst  of  all,  here  were  tricked  men, 
mighty  in  wealth  ;  their  houses  in  peace,  without 
fear;  their  children  established  in  their  sight, — 
sending  forth  little  ones  like  a  flock,  spending 
their  days  in  prosperity,  and  yet  saying,  "  Who 
is  the  Almighty  that  we  should  fear  him  ?  "  while 
here  he  was,  a  poor  wreck,  stranded  on  a  deso- 
late shore  ;  a  broken  man,  crying,  "  Oh  that  it 
were  with  me  as  in  days  gone  by,  when  the  can- 
dle of  the  Lord  shone  round  about  me  ;  when  I 
.took  my  seat  in  tb^e  market-place,  and  justice  was 
my  robe  and  diadem !     When  I  think  of  it,  I  am 


66  LIGHT   ON   A   HIDDEN   WAY. 

confounded.  One  dieth  in  the  fulness  of  his 
prosperity,  wholly  at  ease  and  quiet :  another 
dieth  in  the  bitterness  of  his  soul,  not  having 
tasted  pleasure.  How  is  it?  What  does  it  mean  ? 
Why  is  light  given  to  a  man  whose  way  is  hid  ?  " 
Now  I  suppose  that  not  many  men  ever  fall  into 
such  supreme  desolation  as  this,  that  is  made  to 
centre  in  the  life  of  this  most  sorrowful  man.  "  It 
is  the  possible  of  that  which  in  itself  is  only  posi- 
tive." But  then  it  is  true  that  one  may  reach  out 
in  all  directions,  and  find  men  and  women  who  are 
conscious  of  the  light  shining,  but  who  cannot  find 
the  way ;  whose  condition  will  not  chord  with 
their  conception  of  life  ;  who,  in  a  certain  sense, 
would  be  better  if  they  were  not  so  good.  The 
very  perfection  of  their  nature  is  the  way  by 
which  they  are  most  easily  bruised.  Keen,  ear- 
nest, onward,  not  satisfied  to  be  below  their  own 
ideal,  they  are  yet  turned  so  wofully  this  way 
and  that  by  adverse  circumstances,  that,  at  the 
last,  they  either  come  to  accept  their  life  as  a 
doom,  and  bear  it  in  grim  silence  ;  or  they  cut  the 
masts  when  the  storm  comes,  and  drift  a  helpless 
hull  broadside  to  the  breakers,  to  go  down  finally 
like  a  stone. 


LIGHT   ON    A    HIDDEN   WAY.  67 

Here  is  a  young  man  newly  come  to  your  city, 
fresh  from  his  good  country  home.  He  is  re- 
solved to  make  a  mark,  —  to  be  the  best  sort  of 
a  man.  He  is  full  of  budding  energies  and  capa- 
bilities. Let  him  once  get  hold  fairly,  and  he  is 
sure  to  succeed.  "But  he  finds  it  difficult  to  start  : 
places  are  not  plenty.  It  is  very  hard,  uphill 
work :  he  strives,  and  stays  poor.  He  does  not 
find  the  way.  At  last  lie  is  hungry  and  faint  in 
the  wilderness,  alone  ;  and  the  Devil  comes, 
tempting  him.  He  is  a  very  nice  person  proba- 
bly, wears  a  good  coat,  lives  in  good  style  :  it  may 
be  he  has  a  pew  in  church.  He  says,  "  Here  is 
something  I  want  done :  if  you  will  do  it,  you 
will  get  what  you  want,  the  kingdom  of  the 
world.  It  is  not  what  puritanic  people  call  right, 
to  be  sure ;  but  there  is  no  harm  in  it.  Every- 
body does  it ;  and,  if  you  do  it,  you  are  sure  to 
succeed."  That  young  man  is  in  danger,  just  as 
his  life  rises  in  strong,  fierce  jets,  and  is  full  of 
latent  power.  If  he  take  counsel  of  his  impa- 
tience, he  will  kneel  down  there  and  then,  and  do 
as  he  is  bid.  And  it  is  possible  that  he  will  get 
what  he  bargained  for,  but  witli  this  difference, 
that,  while  he  stands  fast  in  his  integrity,  though 


68  LIGHT   ON    A    HIDDEN   WAY. 

there  is  no  way,  the  light  shines ;  when  he 
has  once  gone  down,  the  way  may  be  open,  but 
the  light  is  gone.  Or  he  succeeds  in  all  manly 
integrity,  makes  his  fortune,  and  then  gradually 
slides  into  a  belief  in  a  Providence  like  that  Job 
believed  in  before  his  trouble  came,  —  a  Provi- 
dence that  will  keep  him  prosperous,  because 
he  is  a  good  man :  a  great  crash  comes,  and 
he  loses  all,  including  his  belief  in  God.  Or  he 
makes  a  fortune,  and  holds  it,  but  then  forgets 
that  money  to  a  man  is  like  water  to  a  plant,  — 
only  useful  so  long  as  it  promotes  growth.  Like 
water  in  the  fountain  or  water  in  the  tank,  keep 
it  flowing,  and  it  blesses  ;  keep  it  stagnant,  and  it 
kills. 

The  maiden  comes  out  of  her  home,  with  the 
bloom  of  youth  on  her  soul,  —  a  wonder  of  love 
and  trust.  She  walks  wistfully  down  the  world, 
and  gradually  is  aware,  that  she  will  never  meet 
the  man  she  can  wed.  Yet  her  heart  is  full  of 
love,  and  there  are  moments  when  she  feels  very 
very  sad,  trying  to  reconcile  her  nature  to  her 
condition ;  and  she  cries,  "  Why  is  light  given, 
when  the  way  is  hid  ?  "  Or  she  weds,  believing 
that  she  has  found  a  man  sent  from  God  for 


LIGHT   ON    A    HIDDEN   WAY.  09 

her,  to  find  afterward,  perhaps,  that  she  is  mis- 
taken by  half  a  diameter.  Yet  she  will  strive 
hard  and  long  to  see  in  him  the  man  God  has  put 
into  her  heart,  but  will  give  it  up  at  the  last,  and 
say,  "  Why  is  light  given,  when  the  way  is  hid  ?  " 

Or  the  man  and  woman  are  set  each  to  each, 
like  perfect  music,  unto  noble  words  ;  but  one  is 
taken,  and  the  other  left.  John  Wilson,  walking 
down  the  world  with  such  a  wife  by  his  side,  said, 
"  I  shall  die  in  my  nest :  I  shall  see  no  sorrow." 
But,  one  morning,  he  stood  before  his  class,  and 
said,  "  Gentlemen,  I  have  not  examined  your 
essays :  I  could  not  see  to  read  them  in  the  valley 
of  the  sliadow  of  death  where  I  have  been ; "  and 
then  the  strong  man  bowed  himself,  and  wept 
sore,  and  went  to  his  darkened  home. 

Or  the  man  and  woman  live  in  sweet  accord ; 
but  their  home  is  too  quiet,  or  it  ripples  over 
with  sweet  laughter,  and  then  passes  again  into 
silence. 

Or  here,  in  the  larger  life,  is  a  prince  and 
leader  of  men.  The  roots  of  his  power  begin  to 
ramify  through  all  the  land.  He  seems  to  be  the 
one  indispensable  man  of  the  time.  In  the  sorest 
need  of  all,  he  is  smitten  down,  and  dies. 


70  LIGHT   ON   A    HIDDEN   WAY. 

Or  here  is  a  great  cause,  reaching  back  into  a 
great  principle.  The  light  of  the  divine  justice 
shines  on  the  principle,  and  so  wins  men  to  it 
that  they  cannot  rest.  Year  after  year,  they  will 
stand  suffering,  toiling,  dying  for  their  cause ; 
but  the  way  does  not  open.  Yet  they  cannot 
choose  but  follow  the  light.  If  the  light  had  not 
shone  so  in  our  own  land,  we  might  have  ground 
along  in  some  sort  of  affinity  to  slavery.  It  was 
light  poured  on  the  conscience  of  the  nation,  that 
brought  on  the  war  ;  it  was  light  shining  through 
the  darkness,  that  kept  the  nation  steady.  Had 
no  such  light  shone,  we  should  have  constructed 
a  new  Union,  with  the  shackle  of  the  slave  for  a 
wedding-ring.  But  the  light  stood  like  a  wall 
of  fire  :  yet  how  long  it  was  only  a  light  shining 
on  a  hidden  way  !  —  our  homes  black  with  deso- 
lation ;  fathers,  mothers,  wives,  only  putting  on 
a  cheerful  look,  because  they  would  not  by 
their  sadness  dishearten  the  great  heart  of  the 
nation. 

And  so,  I  say,  in  men  and  nations  you  will 
find  everywhere  this  discord  between  the  longing 
that  is  in  the  soul,  and  what  the  man  can  do. 
Our  life,  as  some  one  has  said  of  the  Cathedral 


LIGHT   ON   A    HIDDEN   WAY.  ■  71 

of  Cologne,  seems  to  be  a  broken  promise  made 
to  God ;  and  — 

"How  blest  we  should  be, 
"We  have  always  believed, 
Had  we  really  achieved 
What  we  nearly  achieved! 
The  thought  that  most  thrilled 
Our  existence  is  one 
That  before  we  could  frame  it 
In  language  is  gone. 
The  more  we  gaze  up  into  heaven, 
The  more  do  we  feel  our  gaze  fail. 
All  attempts  to  explore, 
With  earth's  finite  insight, 
Heaven's  infinite  gladness, 
Is  baffled  by  something 
Like  infinite  sadness." 

Now  trying,  secondly,  to  find  some  solution  of 
this  question,  I  want  to  say  frankly,  that  I  cannot 
pretend  to  make  the  mystery  all  clear,  so  that  it 
will  give  you  no  more  trouble ;  because  I  cannot 
put  a  girdle  round  the  world  in  forty  minutes, 
and  because  a  full  solution  must  depend  greatly 
on  our  own  dissolution.  "  Let  the  light  enter," 
said  the  great  German,  and  then  —  died.  I 
believe,  also,  that  the  man  who  thinks  he  has  left 
nothing  unexplained,  in  the  mystery  of  provi- 
dence and  life,  has  rather  explained  nothing.  I 
listen  to  him,  if  I  am  in  trouble ;  and  then  I  go 
home,  and  break  my  heart  all  the  same  ;  because 


72  LIGHT   ON   A   HIDDEN   WAY. 

I  see  that  he  has  not  only  not  cleared  up  the  mys- 
tery, but  that  he  does  not  know  enough  about  it 
to  trouble  him.  The  "  Principia  "  and  the  Single 
Rule  of  Three  are  alike  simple  and  easy  to  him, 
because  he  does  not  know  the  Rule  of  Three. 
And  so  I  cannot  be  satisfied  with  the  last  words 
which  some  later  hand  has  added  to  the  book  that 
holds  this  sad  history.  They  tell  us  how  Job  has 
all  his  property  doubled,  to  the  last  ass  and 
camel,  —  has  seven  sons  again  and  three  daugh- 
ters, has  entire  satisfaction  of  all  his  accusers, 
lives  a  hundred  and  forty  years,  sees  four  gene- 
rations of  his  line,  and  then  dies  —  satisfied. 
Need  I  say  that  this  solution  will  not  stand  the 
test  of  life ;  that  i£  life,  on  the  average,  came 
out  so  from  its  most  trying  ordeal,  there  would 
be  little  need  for  sermons  like  this  ?  For  then 
every  life  would  be  an  open,  self-contained  provi- 
dence, and  the  last  page  in  time  would  vindicate 
the  first.  Men  do  not  so  live  and  die  ;  and  such 
cannot  have  been  the  primitive  conclusion  of  the 
history.  It  has  deeper  meaning  and  a  sublimer 
justification,  or  it  had  never  been  inspired  by  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

And   this   is   sure   to   suggest   itself  to   you, 


LIGHT   ON    A    HIDDEN    WAT.  73 

as  you  read  the  history,  that  Job,  in  his  trouble, 
would  have  lost  nothing  and  gained  very  much, 
if  he  had  not  been  so  hasty  in  coming  to  the 
conclusion,  that  God  had  left  him,  that  life  was 
a  mere  apple  of  Sodom,  that  he  had  backed  up 
to  great  walls  of  fate,  and  that  he  had  not  a 
friend  left  on  earth.  His  soul,  looking  through 
her  darkened  windows,  concluded  the  heavens 
were  dark.  The  nerve,  quivering  at  the  gentlest 
touch,  mistook  the  ministration  of  mercy  for  a 
blow.  He  might  have  found  some  cool  shelter 
for  his  agony  :  he  preferred  to  sit  on  the  ashes 
in  the  burning  sun.  He  knew  not  where  the 
next  robe  was  to  come  from :  this  did  not  de- 
ter him  from  tearing  to  shreds  the  robe  that 
was  to  shelter  him  from  the  keen  winds.  It 
was  a  dreadful  trial  at  the  best ;  it  was  worse  for 
his  way  of  meeting  it ;  and,  when  he  was  at  once 
in  the  worst  health  and  temper  possible,  he  said, 
"  Why  is  light  given  to  a  man  whose  way  is 
hid  ? "  Is  not  this  now,  as  it  was  then,  one  of 
the  most  serious  mistakes  that  can  be  made  ? 
I  try  to  solve  great  problems  of  providence,  per- 
haps, when  I  am  so  unstrung  as  to  be  entirely 
unfitted  to  touch  their  more  subtle,  delicate,  and 


74  LIGHT   ON   A    HIDDEN   WAY. 

far-reaching  harmonies.  As  well  might  you  de- 
cide on  some  exquisite  anthem  when  your  organ 
is  broken,  and  conclude  there  is  no  music  in  it 
because  you  can  make  no  music  of  it,  as,  in  such 
a  condition  of  the  life  and  such  a  temper  of  the 
spirit,  try  to  find  these  great  harmonies  of  God. 
When  I  am  in  trouble,  then,  and  darkness  comes 
down  on  me  like  a  pall,  the  first  question  ought 
to  be,  "  How  much  of  this  unbelief  about  provi- 
dence and  life,  like  Cowper's  sense  of  the  unpar- 
donable sin,  comes  from  the  most  material  dis- 
organization ?  Is  the  darkness  I  feel  in  the  soul, 
or  is* it  on  the  windows  through  which  the  soul 
must  see  ?  "  Then,  clear  on  this  matter,  the  man 
tried  so  will  endeavor  to  stand  at  the  first,  where 
this  sad-hearted  man  stood  at  the  last,  in  the 
shadow  of  the  Almighty,  if  he  must  stand  in  a 
shadow,  and  hold  on  to  the  confidence  that  some- 
where within  all  this  trial  is  the  eternal,  the 
shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land. 

It  is  a  wonderful  story.  Job  and  his  friends 
speculate  all  about  the  mystery,  and  their  conclu- 
sions from  their  premises  are  entirely  correct ; 
but  they  have  forgotten  to  take  in  the  separate 
sovereign  will  of  God.  as  working  out  a  great 


LIGHT   ON   A    HIDDEN   WAY.  75 

purpose  in  the  man's  life,  by  which  he  is  to  be 
lifted  into  a  grander  reach  of  insight  and  experi- 
ence than  ever  he  had  before.  Job  said,  "  I 
suffer,  I  am  in  darkness  and  disappointment  and 
pain,  because  it  is  fate."  Job's  friends  said, 
"  No :  you  suffer  because  you  have  sinned. 
Rushes  never  grow  without  mire."  They  were 
both  wrong,  and  all  wrong.  He  suffered  because 
that  was  the  divine  way  of  bringing  him  out  of  his 
sleek,  self-satisfied  content;  and  when,  through 
suffering,  that  was  done,  he  said,  "  I  have  heard 
of  Thee  with  mine  ears,  but  now  mine  eye  seeth 
thee."  There  is  a  bird,  it  is  said,  that  will  never 
learn  the  song  his  master  will  have  him  sing, 
while  his  cage  is  full  of  light.  He  listens,  and 
learns  a  snatch  of  this,  a  trill  of  that,  a  polyglott 
of  all  the  songs  in  the  grove,  but  never  a  separate 
and  entire  melody  of  his  Own.  But  the  master 
covers  his  cage,  —  makes  the  way  all  dark 
about  him :  then  he  will  listen,  and  listen  to  the 
one  song  he  has  to  sing ;  and  try  and  try,  and 
try  again,  until  at  the  last  his  heart  is  full  of  it : 
then,  when  he  has  caught  the  melody,  the  cage  is 
uncovered.  When  there  is  light  on  the  song, 
there    is    no    need    for   darkness   on   the   way. 


76  LIGHT   ON   A   HIDDEN   WAY. 

Friends,  if  I  had  never  gone  into  darkened  rooms, 
where  the  soul  stands  at  the  parting  of  the 
worlds ;  or  sat  down  beside  widows  and  little 
children,  when  the  desire  of  their  eyes  was  taken 
away  with  a  stroke ;  or  grasped  the  hands  of 
strong  men,  when  all  they  had  toiled  for  was 
gone,  —  nothing  left  but  honor;  or  ministered  to 
men  mangled  on  the  battle-field,  beyond  all  tell- 
ing ;  and  heard,  in  all  these  places  where  dark- 
ness was  on  the  way,  melodies,  melodies  that  I 
never  heard  among  the  common-places  of  pros- 
perity, —  I  could  not  be  so  sure  as  I  am,  that  God 
often  darkens  the  way  that  the  melody  may  grow 
clear  and  entire  in  the  soul. 

Then,  if  this  man  could  have  known,  —  as  he 
sat  there  in  the  ashes,  bruising  his  heart  on  this 
problem  of  providence,  —  that,  in  the  trouble 
that  had  come  upon  him,  he  was  doing  what  one 
man  may  do  to  work  out  the  problem  for  the 
world,  he  might  again  have  taken  courage.  No 
man  lives  to  himself.  Job's  life  is  but  your  life 
and  mine,  written  in  larger  text.  What  we  are 
all  doing,  as  we  stand  in  our  lot,  steady  to  our 
manliness  or  womanliness  in  our  black  days,  is  to 
tell,  in  its  measure,  on  the  life  and  faith  of  every 


LIGHT   ON    A    HIDDEN   WAY.  77 

good  man  coming  after  us,  though  our  name  may 
be  forgotten.  There  is  a  story  in  the  annals  of 
science  touching  this  principle,  that  we  cannot 
struggle  faithfully  with  these  things,  and  leave 
them  as  we  found  them.  Plato,  piercing  here 
and  there  with  his  wonderful  Greek  eyes,  — 

"  Searching,  through  all  he  felt  and  saw, 
The  springs  of  life,  the  depths  of  awe, 
To  reach  the  law  within  the  law,"  — 

was  impressed  by  the  suggestive  beauty  of  the 
elliptic  figure.  He  tried  to  search  out  its  full 
meaning,  but  died  without  the  sight.  A  century 
and  a  half  after  Plato,  Apollonius  came,  was 
arrested  in  the  same  way,  took  up  the  question 
where  Plato  left  it,  tried  to  find  out  its  full  mean- 
ings, and  died  without  the  sight.  "  And  so," 
says  a  fine  writer  recently,  "  for  eighteen  cen- 
turies, some  of  the  best  minds  were  fascinated  by 
this  problem,  —  drew  from  it  strength  and  disci- 
pline ;  and  yet,  in  all  this  time,  the  problem  was 
an  abstract  form,  a  beautiful  or  painful  specula- 
tion." It  did  not  open  out  into  any  harmonious 
principle.  There  was  light  on  the  thing,  but  no 
light  on  the  way.  In  the  full  time,  Kepler  came ; 
sat  down  to  the  study  ;  and  by  what  we  call  the 
suggestion  of  genius,  but  ought  to  call  the  inspi- 


78  LIGHT   ON   A    HIDDEN   WAY. 

ration  of  the  Almighty,  found  that  the  orbits 
of  the  planets  were  elliptical.  He  died.  Then 
Newton  was  born,  took  up  the  problem  where 
Kepler  had  laid  it  down,  made  all  the  established 
facts  the  base  of  his  mightier  labors ;  and,  when 
he  had  done,  he  had  shown  that  this  figure,  this 
problem,  that  had  held  men  spellbound  through 
the  ages,  is  a  prime  element  in  the  law  of  uni- 
versal gravitation,  —  at  once  the  most  beautiful 
theory  and  the  most  absolute  conclusion  of  sci- 
ence. Then  men  could  see  how  it  was,  because 
God  had  made  the  light  shine  on  the  thing,  that 
the  way  was  found.  From  Newton  back  to  Plato, 
in  true  apostolic  order,  every  man,  bending  over 
this  mystery  of  a  light  where  there  was  no  way, 
wrestling  faithfully  with  it,  had  not  only  grown 
more  noble  in  his  own  soul  in  the  struggle,  but 
had  done  his  share  toward  the  solution  found 
by  this  greatest  and  last  who  was  also  "born 
under  the  law,  that  they  might  receive  the  adop- 
tion of  sons." 

So,  I  tell  you,  is  this  restless  search  for  a  con- 
dition that  shall  answer  to  our  conception  ;  this 
fascination,  that  compels  us  to  search  out  the 
elliptic  of  providence,  —  the  geometric  certainty 


LIGHT   ON   A    HIDDEN   WAY.  79 

underlying  the  apparent  eccentricity.  And  every 
struggle  to  find  this  certainty ;  every  endeavor  to 
plumb  the  deepest  causes  of  the  discord  between 
what  the  nature  bears  and  what  the  soul  believes  ; 
every  striving  to  find  the  God  of  our  loftiest  faith 
in  our  darkest  day,  will,  in  some  way,  aid  the  de- 
monstration, until,  in  the  full  time,  some  Newton 
of  the  soul  will  come,  and,  gathering  the  result 
of  all  these  struggles  between  our  conception  of 
life  and  our  condition  in  life,  will  make  it  the  base 
of  some  vast  generalization,  that  will  bring  the  ri- 
pest conclusions  of  the  science  of  providence  into 
perfect  accord  with  the  old,  grand  apostolic  reve- 
lation, "  We  know  that  all  things  work  together 
for  good  to  them  that  love  God."  "We  wrong  the 
deepest  revelations  of  life,  when  we  are  not  con- 
tent to  let  this  one  little  segment  in  the  arc  of 
our  existence  stand  in  its  own  simple,  separate 
intention,  whether  it  be  gladness  or  gloom ;  and 
trust  surely,  if  we  are  faithful,  that  the  full  and 
perfect  intention  must  come  out  in  the  full  range 
of  our  being. 

God  seldom,  perhaps  never,  works  out  his 
visible  purpose  in  one  life:  how,  then,  shall  he  in 
one  life  work  out  his  perfect  will  ?     The  dumb 


80  LIGHT   ON   A    HIDDEN   WAY. 

poetry  in  William  Burns  the  father  had  to 
wait  for  Robert  Burns  the  son.  Bernardo  waited 
to  be  perfected  in  his  son  Torquato  Tasso ; 
William  Herschel  left  many  a  problem  in  the 
heavens  for  John  Herschel  to  make  clear ;  Leopold 
Mozart  wrestled  with  melodies  that  Chrysostom 
Mozart  found  afterward  singing  of  themselves  in 
every  chamber  of  his  brain ;  and  Raymond  Bon- 
heur  needed  his  daughter  Rosa  to  come,  and  paint 
out  his  pictures  for  him. 

Dr.  Reid  has  said,  that,  when  the  bee  makes 
its  cell  so  geometrically,  the  geometry  is  not  in 
the  bee,  but  in  the  geometrician  that  made  the 
bee.  Alas,  if  in  the  Maker  there  is  no  such 
order  for  us  as  there  is  for  the  bee !  If  God  so 
instruct  the  bee ;  if  God  so  feed  the  'bird ;  if 
even  the  lions,  roaring  after  their  prey,  seek 
their  meat  from  God ;  if  he  not  only  holds  the 
linnet  on  the  spray,  but  the  lion  on  the  spring,  — 
how  shall  we  dare  lose  heart  and  hope  ? 

So,  then,  while  we  may  not  know  what  trials 
wait  on  any  of  us,  we  can  believe,  that  as  the 
days  in  which  this  man  wrestled  with  his  dark 
maladies  are  the  only  days  that  make  him  worth 
remembrance,  and  but  for  which  his  name  had 


LIGHT   ON   A    HIDDEN   WAY.  81 

never  been  written  in  the  book  of  life ;  so  the 
days  through  which  we  struggle,  finding  no  way, 
but  never  losing  the  light,  will  be  the  most  sig- 
nificant we  are  called  to  live.  Indeed  men  in  all 
ages  have  wrestled  with  this  problem  of  the  dif- 
ference between  the  conception  and  the  condition. 
Literature  is  full  of  these  appeals,  from  the  doom 
that  is  on  us  to  the  love  that  is  over  us,  —  from 
the  God  we-  fear  to  the  God  we  worship.  The 
very  Christ  cries  once,  "  My  God !  why  hast  thou 
forsaken  me  ?  "  Yet  never  did  our  noblest  and 
best,  our  apostles,  martyrs,  and  confessors,  flinch 
finally  from  their  trust,  that  God  is  light ;  that 
life  is  divine ;  that  there  is  a  way,  though  we 
may  not  see  it ;  and  have  gone  singing  of  their 
deep  confidence,  by  fire  and  cross,  into  the 
shadow  of  death.  It  is  true,  nay,  it  is  truest 
of  all,  that  "  men  who  suffered  countless  ills, 
in  battles  for  the  true  and  just,"  have  had  the 
strongest  conviction,  like  old  Latimer,  that  a 
way  would  open  in  those  moments  when  it 
seemed  most  impossible.  Their  light  on  the 
thing  brought  a  commanding  assurance,  that 
there  must  somewhere,  sometime,  be  light  on  the 

way. 

4* 


82  LIGHT  ON   A   HIDDEN  WAY. 

"  I  say  to  thee,  do  thou  repeat 
To  the  first  man  that  thou  shalt  meet 
In  lane,  highway,  or  open  street,  — 

That  he  and  we,  and  all  men,  move 

Under  a  canopy  of  love 

As  broad  as  the  blue  sky  above ; 

That  doubt  and  trouble,  fear  and  pain, 
And  anguish,  —  these  are  shadows  vain; 
That  death  itself  shall  not  remain ; 

That  weary  deserts  wTe  may  tread, 
Dreary  perplexities  may  thread, 
Through  dark  ways  underground  be  led; 

Yet  we,  on  divers  shores  now  cast, 
Shall  meet,  when  this  dark  storm  is  past, 
Safe  in  our  Father's  home  at  last. 

And,  ere  thou  leave  him,  say  thou  this, 
Yet  one  thing  more :  they  only  miss 
The  speedy  winning  of  that  bliss,  — 

Who  will  not  count  it  true,  that  love, 
Blessing,  not  cursing,  rules  above ; 
And  that  in  this  we  live  and  move. 

And  one  thing  further :  let  him  know, 
That,  to  believe  these  things  are  so, 
This  firm  faith  never  to  forego 

In  spite  of  all  that  seems  at  strife 
With  blessing  —  all  with  cursing  rife, 
That  this  is  blessing,  this  is  life." 


V. 

THE  FOLLY  OF  SOLOMON. 

Eccles.  i.  2:  "All  is  vanity." 

Almost  three  thousand  years  ago,  a  little  child 
was  born  to  David,  King  of  Israel,  whose  advent 
was  felt  to  be  such  a  blessing,  that  he  was  called 
Solomon,  or  "  Peace."  He  was  carefully  reared, 
as  befitted  the  future  ruler  of  the  nation ;  had 
natural  gifts  of  surpassing  excellence ;  was  dili- 
gent in  their  improvement ;  and,  so  far  as  we  can 
now  ascertain,  was  the  foremost  scholar  in  the 
land  at  that  time.  The  nation  of  which  he  was 
destined  to  be  the  ruler  was  then  touching  the 
summit  of  its  greatness  ;  and  this  prince  became 
to  Jewry  what  Alexander,  at  a  later  day,  was  to 
Greece,  and  Augustus  to  Rome.  He  came  to 
the  throne  in  due  time,  and  the  people  shouted, 
"  God  save  the  king ! "  His  public  life  opened 
beautifully  and  well.  He  made  wise  treaties  as  a 
king,  and  wonderful  decisions  as  a  judge.     He 

[83] 


84  THE   FOLLY   OF   SOLOMON. 

developed  commerce,  manufactures,  literature,  and 
art ;  edited,  and  partly  wrote,  one  book  which, 
in  those  early  days  got  unquestioned  canoniza- 
tion, and,  in  a  measure  deserved  it. 

He  was  also  the  founder  and  finisher  of 
the  first  temple  on  Zion,  and  offered  the  first 
prayer  at  its  consecration.  That  prayer  has  come 
down  to  us:  it  reveals  a  sincere  and  religious 
nature.  Then  he  was  a  great  student,  philoso- 
pher, musician,  and  landscape  gardener ;  created 
a  beautiful  home,  and  married  a  wife  more  of  his 
free  choice  than  commonly  falls  to  the  lot  of 
kings.  In  a  word,  one  thinks  he  was  about  all  a 
man  can  be,  and  gathered  all  a  man  can  get,  in 
this  world,  to  make  him  content  and  happy. 
Then,  when  he  had  done,  he  wrote  a  sermon, 
in  which  he  tried  to  tell  what  it  was  all  worth. 
That  sermon  is  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  and 
its  burden  is  the  text  I  have  read  you.  And 
I  want  to  give  you  the  kernel  of  the  discourse,  in 
a  few  representative  sentences,  selected  from  the 
whole  book. 

The  preacher  begins  by  declaring,  that  all 
the  things  that  happen  are  an  endless  repeti- 
tion.    The  sun  rises  and  sets  ;  the  wind  veers 


THE   FOLLY   OF   SOLOMON.  85 

round  and  round ;  the  waters  arc  lifted  out  of 
the  sea,  and  poured  in  again.  Man  is  a  part 
of  this  endless  round ;  race  after  race  sweeps  on, 
all  alike  and  all  alike  forgotten ;  so  that  which 
has  been  shall  be,  and  there  is  no  new  thing 
under  the  sun.  "  I  have  tried  it,"  cries  the 
preacher.  "  I  was  a  king,  and  what  can  any  man 
do  more  than  a  king  ?  I  tell  you  it  is  vanity ; 
and  you  cannot  make  the  crooked  straight,  or 
number  what  is  wanting.  Things  are  set  fast 
as  they  are,  and  so  they  will  stay ;  and  he  that 
increases  knowledge  increases  sorrow.  I  tried 
pleasure,  planted  gardens,  opened  fountains,  in- 
dulged in  wine  and  mirth  and  music.  I  know 
exactly  what  these  can  do  for  a  man  ;  and  there 
is  no  profit  in  them.  I  found  them  vanity  ;  so  I 
hated  all  my  labor  that  I  had  done  under  the 
sun.  Then  I  dipped  into  fatalism.  I  said, '  What 
is  to  be  will  be ;  there  is  a  time  for  every  thing 
under  the  sun,  —  a  time  to  be  born,  and  a  time 
to  die ;  a  time  to  weep,  and  a  time  to  laugh ;  a 
time  to  love,  and  a  time  to  hate ;  a  time  to  get, 
and  a  time  to  lose ;  a  time  to  pull  down,  and  a 
time  to  build  up.'  And,  when  the  time  comes, 
the  man  must  do  his  work ;  but  then  this  is  van 


86  THE   FOLLY   OF   SOLOMON. 

ity :  for,  if  a  man  act  so  blindly,  what  is  lie  more 
than  a  beast  ?  There  is  no  pre-eminence ;  fate  is 
master  of  both ;  all  spring  from  the  dust,  all  go 
to  the  dust;  all  is  vanity.  Then  I  tried  man. 
But  I  saw  the  oppressed,  and  they  had  no 
comforter ;  and  the  oppressor,  and  he  had  no 
comfort.  So  I  praised  the  dead  more  than  the 
living,  and  that  which  never  knew  life  more  than 
they  both.  For  I  saw  that  every  man  was  for 
himself;  and,  though  he  had  neither  child  nor 
brother,  he  never  said,  '  Why  do  I  starve  my  life 
for  gain  ? '  All  is  vanity.  What  is  a  wise  man 
more  than  a  fool  ?  Who  can  tell  a  man  what  is 
good,  when  all  his  days  are  as  a  shadow  ?  Sor- 
row is  better  than  laughter;  the  end  is  better 
than  the  beginning.  A  just  man  perishes  by  his 
own  justice,  while  a  wicked  man  prolongs  his  life 
in  his  wickedness.  Nay,  come  to  that,  there  is 
no  just  man  on  this  earth.  I  have  studied  the 
thing  out:  there  is  not  one  man  in  a  thousand 
upright,  and  not  one  woman  in  the  world.  Don't 
be  righteous  overmuch  or  wicked  overmuch.  I 
see  the  wicked  get  the  reward  of  the  good,  and 
the  good  the  reward  of  the  wicked.  A  man  has 
no  better  thing  under  the  sun  than  to  eat  and 


THE   FOLLY   OF  SOLOMON.  87 

drink  and  be  merry  ;  for  there  is  no  certainty. 
The  dead  know  not  any  thing.  There  is  no  wis- 
dom or  knowledge  or  device  in  the  grave  whither 
we  all  hasten.  And  the  race  is  not  to  the  swift, 
or  the  battle  to  the  strong ;  or  bread  to  the  wise, 
or  fame  to  the  skilful.  Servants  ride  on  horses  ; 
princes  trudge  on  foot.  You  cannot  alter  the 
thing :  it  is  so,  and  so  it  will  be.  If  you  dig  a  pit, 
you  will  fall  into  it ;  if  you  move  a  hedge,  a  ser- 
pent will  bite  you ;  if  you  take  down  a  wall,  the 
stones  will  bruise  you ;  if  you  listen,  you  will 
hear  your  servant  curse  you.  Money  will  buy 
any  thing.  All  is  vanity.  Childhood  and  youth 
is  vanity ;  old  age  is  vanity.  Vanity  of  vanities, 
all  is  vanity." 

This,  my  friends,  is  the  substance  of  this  great 
man's  last  estimate  of  life.  You  read  it,  and,  as 
you  read,  you  watch  the  writer  trying  to  fight 
down  the  black  shadows  as  they  rise.  Here  and 
there,  too,  all  through  his  sermon,  he  will  say  a 
noble  thing  on  the  right  side  ;  as  if  the  old  power 
of  piety  was  strong  enough  yet  to  burn  through, 
and  force  its  way  to  the  parchment.  But, 
when  the  best  is  said  and  done,  the  result  is  a 
belief  in  a  God  who  exacts  more  than  he  gives, 


88  THE   FOLLY   OF  SOLOMON. 

and  punishes  more  readily  than  he  blesses.  He 
seems  sometimes  to  think,  if  a  man  will  take 
good  care,  there  may  be  some  small  chance  of 
content  for  him.  Still  he  is  all  the  while  afraid 
he  may  say  too  much  on  that  side,  and  is  ready 
at  every  turn  to  let  you  see  the  death's  head 
within  the  folds  of  his  vesture.  Here  and  there 
a  pleasant  note  is  just  sounded,  and  you  say, 
"  Now  we  are  to  have  a  bit  of  gospel,  or  a  song 
of  thanksgiving."  But  the  gospel  is  never  heard  ; 
the  song  is  never  sung.  The  heavy,  solemn  chord 
beats  along  steadily  to  the  last ;  and  the  burden 
is  always,  "  All  is  vanity." 

And  so  it  is  that  this  woful  estimate  of  life  has 
made  this  book  by  far  the  most  difficult  to  under- 
stand in  the  whole  range  of  the  Scriptures. 
Down  to  the  time  of  Jerome,  there  were  pious 
Jews  not  a  few  who  held  that  it  had  better  be 
destroyed.  It  has  taxed  the  ingenuity  of  com- 
mentators, who  have  differed  over  it  as  only 
commentators  can.  For  the  book  has  that  about 
it  that  will  be  heard.  The  writer  was,  in  such 
wisdom  as  it  was,  the  wisest  man  of  his  era.  He 
had  matchless  opportunities  of  knowing  what  the 
life  really  is  he  condemns  so  sternly.     He  speaks 


THE   FOLLY   OF   SOLOMON.  89 

to  you  with  a  most  evident,  sad,  painful  good 
faith,  that  makes  you  feel  sure  he  means  every 
word  he  says.  And  then  the  book  is  set  fast 
among  our  Sacred  Scriptures.  The  statements 
in  it  are  as  positive  as  any  other.  Solomon  is  as 
clear  when  he  says,  "  Man  has  no  pre-eminence 
over  a  beast,"  as  John  is  when  he  says,  "  Beloved, 
now  are  we  the  sons  of  God."  So  it  comes  to 
pass,  that,  if  you  take  this  book  as  it  stands,  and 
undertake  to  believe  it,  the  result  is  very  sad.  It 
chills  all  piety,  paralyzes  all  effort,  hushes  all 
prayer.  If  there  is  grief  in  wisdom,  had  I  not 
better  be  a  fool  ?  If  all  labor  is  vanity,  and  a 
man  is  no  better  than  a  beast,  and  rewards  and 
punishments  are  a  dire  confusion,  and  child- 
hood and  youth  and  old  age  is  vanity,  and  to  die 
is  better  than  to  live,  because  there  is  nothing 
worth  living  or  dying  for,  —  then  this  is  — 

"  A  life  of  nothings,  nothing  worth,  — 
From  that  first  nothing  ere  our  birth 
To  the  last  nothing  under  earth." 

It  cannot  be  denied,  again,  that  the  book  is  but 
the  vocal  utterance  of  many  a  silent  sermon  in 
many  a  lonely  heart.  It  was  this,  no  doubt,  that 
made  it  the  text-book  of  Voltaire  and  the  bosom- 
friend  of  Frederick  the  Great.     Its  monotones  of 


90  THE   FOLLY   OF   SOLOMON. 

despair  are  echoed  out  of  a  thousand  experiences. 
When  a  friend  wished  a  great  English  statesman 
a  happy  new  year,  "  Happy !  "  he  said  ;  "  it  had 
need  be  happier  than  the  last,  for  in  that  I  never 
knew  one  happy  day."  When  an  English  law- 
yer, whose  life  had  seemed  to  be  one  long  range 
of  success,  mounted  the  last  step  in  his  profes- 
sion, he  wrote,  "  In  a  few  weeks  I  shall  retire  to 
dear  Encombe,  as  a  short  resting-place  between 
vexation  and  the  grave."  When  one  said  to  the 
great  Rothschild,  "  You  must  be  a  happy  man," 
he  replied,  "  I  sleep  with  pistols  under  my  pil- 
low." The  most  brilliant  man  of  the  world  in 
the  last  century  said,  "  I  have  enjoyed  all  the 
pleasures  of  life,  and  I  do  not  regret  their  loss  ; 
I  have  been- behind  the  scenes,  and  seen  the  coarse 
pulleys  and  ropes  and  tallow-candles."  And 
the  most  brilliant  poet  of  the  last  generation  said, 
"  The  lapse  of  ages  changes  all  but  man,  who 
ever  has  been,  and  will  be,  an  unlucky  rascal. 
And  one  of  the  finest  promise,  dying  in  his  first 
prime,  left  us  this  estimate,  that  — 

"  All  this  passing  scene 
Is  a  peevish  April  day; 
A  little  sun,  a  little  rain, 
And  then  death  sweeps  along  the  plain, 
And  all  things  fade  away." 


THE   FOLLY  OF   SOLOMON.  91 

Nay,  may  I  not  leave  these  dead,  and  come  to 
the  living  to  find  a  legion   of  men   in   Europe 
and   America,   ready   to   indorse    this    as    their 
own   estimate    of  life,  —  men  who  feel  that  life 
is  weary,  and  fear  that  death  is  but  a  dead,  blank 
wall ;    who  have   come   to   consider   the   forces 
of  life  and  nature  things  that  grind  on  so  im- 
mutably as  to  leave  them  no  heart  to  pray ;  who 
see  those  whose  life  is  a  shame  before  heaven 
rosy  and  happy,  and  threescore  and  ten ;  while 
others,  whose  life  had  begun  to  be  a  very  foun- 
tain of  inspiration  and  blessing,  are  cut  off  in 
their  prime  ?     And  so  they  cry,  "  How  can  there 
be  a  Divine  Providence  ?  "  and  ponder  over  life, 
and  pare  down  faith  to  their  contracting  and  con- 
tracted hope,  until  a  living  faith  in  God  dies  out 
of  their  heart ;  and  then  they  lose  a  real  faith  in 
any  thing,  as  Solomon  did.     For  I  tell  you,  that, 
as  the  outer  life  takes  its  deepest  meaning  from 
the  soul,  the  inner  life  takes  its  deepest  meaning 
from  God ;  and,  when  that  goes,  all  goes.    When 
a  man  ceases  to  believe  in  God,  he  is  in  instant 
danger  of  ceasing  to  believe  in  any  thing  worth 
the  name  of  belief.     In  open-eyed  loyalty  and 
trust,  and  trustful  men  and  things,  all  these  van- 
ish, and  he  can  see  only  — 


92  THE   FOLLY   OF   SOLOMON. 

"  Good  statesmen,  who  bring  ruin  on  a  state ; 
Good  patriots,  who  for  a  theory  risk  a  cause ; 
Good  priests,  who  bring  all  good  to  jeopardy; 
Good  Christians,  who  sit  still  in  easy-chairs, 
And  damn  the  general  world  for  standing  up." 

Now,  then,  for  all  this,  I  have  but  one  answer. 
I  cannot  believe  it.  In  the  deepest  meaning  of  the 
truth  and  the  life,  this  assertion  that  all  is  vanity 
is  utterly  untrue.  It  is  no  matter  to  me  that 
the  man  who  wrote  it  is  sometimes  called  "  the 
wisest  man ; "  that  he  was  in  deadly  earnest 
about  it ;  that  it  was  his  own  woful  experience ; 
and,  if  you  could  add  to  this,  that  an  angel  had 
come  from  heaven  to  re-affirm  it.  All  this  is  gos- 
samer before  the  conviction  of  every  wholesome 
and  healthy  mind,  that  in  this  universe  there  is 
an  infinitely  different  meaning.  God  never  meant 
life  to  be  vanity  ;  and  life  is  not  vanity.  I  care 
not  that  Solomon  look  at  me  out  of  his  great  sad 
eyes,  and  say  so,  while  his  heart  breaks ;  and 
that  Dundas  and  Eldon  and  Byron  and  Kirke 
White  range  with  him.  I  will  not,  you  will  not, 
and  millions  beside  in  the  world  and  out  of  it  will 
not,  testify  that  all  is  vanity. 

And  that  we  are  right  and  all  such  men  wrong 
can  be  proven,  I  think,  outside  our  own  experi- 


THE   FOLLY  OF   SOLOMON.  93 

ence,  on  several  different  counts.  For,  first  of 
all,  this  Solomon  is  not  the  right  man  to  testify. 
When  he  said  this  of  life,  he  was  in  no  condition 
to  tell  the  truth  about  it,  and  he  did  not  tell 
the  truth.  Universal  testimony  makes  this  ser- 
mon the  fruit  of  his  old  age.  There  is  a  dim 
tradition,  that  the  book  was  found  in  fragments 
after  his  death,  edited,  and  the  last  six  verses 
added,  —  and  they  are  the  best  in  the  book, — 
by  another  hand.  If  this  book  was  the  work 
of  Solomon's  old  age,  the  fact  of  itself  supplies 
the  first  reason  why  we  have  such  a  sermon ; 
for  the  man  who  wrote  this  sermon,  and  the 
youth  who  offered  that  noble  prayer  at  the  dedi- 
cation of  the  temple,  are  not  the  same  men. 
The  young  king  knelt  down  in  the  bloom 
of  his  youth,  when  the  fountains  of  life  were 
pure  and  clean  ;  when  through  and  through  his 
soul  great  floods  of  power  and  grace  rose  to 
springtide  every  day;  when  the  processions  of 
nature  and  providence,  the  numbers  of  the  poet, 
the  wisdom  of  the  sage,  the  labors  of  the  re- 
former, and  the  sacrifices  of  the  patriot,  were 
steeped  for  him  in  their  rarest  beauty,  endowed 
with  their  loftiest  meaning,  and  filled  with  their 


94  THE   FOLLY   OF   SOLOMON. 

uttermost  power.  But  that  old  king  in  the 
palace,  writing  his  sermon,  is  weary  and  worn ; 
and,  worst  of  all,  the  clear  fountains  of  his 
nature  are  changed  to  puddles  ;  the  fresh,  strong 
life  has  been  squandered  away ;  the  delicate, 
divine  perception  blunted,  clogged,  and  at  last 
smothered  to  death.  You  know  how,  in  his 
later  life,  this  man  fell  from  his  great  estate  ;  and, 
to  gratify  his  passion  and  pride,  outraged  the 
most  sacred  ordinances,  and  neglected  the  most 
sacred  duties,  that  can  cluster  round  any  life. 
His  biographer  compresses  the  whole  sad  story 
into  one  chapter ;  but,  if  you  will  read  that,  you 
can  see  how  fearfully  he  had  fallen,  —  how 
haggard  vices  had  supplanted  fair  virtues,  and 
successful  rebellion  taken  the  place  of  "  God 
save  the  king."  It  is  when  he  sits  in  that  splen- 
did, cheerless  home ;  when  the  sceptre  totters  in 
his  palsied  hand,  and  the  bloom  of  purity  and  grace 
has  gone  out  of  him  ;  when  his  sin  has  made  him 
blind  to  the  blessing  of  books  and  nature  and 
home  and  God,  and  his  bad  life  has  magnetized 
bad  men  toward  him,  and  driven  good  men  away ; 
and  his  relation  to  woman  is  of  such  a  nature  as 
to  drive  him  from  the  presence  of  such  pure  and 


THE   FOLLY   OP   SOLOMON.  95 

noble  women  as,  thank  God,  never  fail  out  of  the 
world,  and  never  will ;  satirists  and  Solomons  to 
the  contrary,  notwithstanding  ;  it  is  when  he  has 
spent  all  this  substance  in  riotous  living,  and  re- 
duced himself  to  an  utter  destitution  of  the  heifct 
and  soul, —  that  he  will  write  his  final  estimate 
of  God,  nature,  life,  death,  books,  and  men  and 
women.  Can  we  wonder  that  such  a  man  should 
write  "  all  is  vanity,"  when  he  had  come  to  be  the 
vanity  he  wrote  ? 

But,  then,  I  ask  you,  was  this  the  time  to  make 
the  estimate,  when  the  man  was  all  dissonant 
to  the  touch  of  the  divine  finger;  or  was  that 
the  time  when  every  faculty  was  chorded  and 
attuned,  and  he  stood  in  harmony  with  life,  and 
the  experience  on  which  his  estimate  was  founded 
was  the  sweet  music  that  came  out  of  the  com- 
munion of  his  soul  with  God  ?  Believe  me,  we 
cannot  form  the  true  estimate  when  the  life  is 
ruined.  What  he  said  when  he  was  his  best  self, 
before  his  ruin,  was  true ;  and  the  estimate  lie 
made,  when  he  was  a  lower  man,  was  as  much 
out  of  true  as  the  man  was. 

Then  there  was  an  error  in  this  man's  method 
of  testing  life,  that  I  suspect  to  be  at  the  root  of 


96  THE   FOLLY   OF  SOLOMON. 

much  of  the  weariness  that  is  still  felt ;  and  that 
is,  the  man  does  not  seem  to  have  tried  to  be 
happy,  in  making  others  happy,  in  bringing  one 
gleam  more  of  gladness,  or  one  pulse  more  of 
life,  into  any  soul  save  his  own.  In  the  sad  days 
recorded  here,  nature,  books,  men,  women,  were 
worth  to  him  just  what  they  could  do  for  him. 
When  he  gave  up  being  good,  and  took  to  being 
wise,  he  never  more  drank  at  that  fountain  which 
is  the  source  of  all  true  blessedness,  but  made 
his  wisdom  a  cistern ;  and,  lo !  it  was  cracked 
and  fissured  in  every  direction.  He  gave  up 
the  present  sense  of  God  in  the  soul ;  the  high 
uses  of  worship ;  the  inspiration  hidden  in  great 
books ;  the  deep  blessedness  of  being  father,  hus- 
band, friend,  teacher,  patriot,  and  reformer;  buried 
himself  in  his  harem ;  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  all  the 
pleadings  of  his  better  angel ;  and,  when  he  had 
come  to  this,  who  can  wonder  that  all  was  vanity  ? 
But  now  I  must  state  the  reason,  that  to  me 
is  greatest  of  all,  why  I  know  all  is  not  vanity. 
A  thousand  years  after  this  sad  sermon  was 
written,  there  was  born  of  the  same  great  line 
another  little  child.  He  had  no  royal  training, 
no  waiting  sceptre,  no  kingly  palace,  but  the  ten 


THE   FOLLY   OF   SOLOMON.  97 

der  nurture  of  a  noble  mother,  and,  from  the  first, 
a  wonderful  nearness  to  God,  —  and  that  was  all. 
He  grew  up  in  a  country  town  that  had  become  a 
proverb  of  worthlessness.  The  neighbors,  when 
he  is  a  man,  cannot  remember  that  he  ever 
learned  his  letters.  He  stood'  at  the  carpenter's 
bench,  working  for  his  bread,  until  he  was  per- 
haps thirty  years  old ;  and  then  it  was  given  to 
him  to  preach  another  sermon,  and  make  another 
estimate.  He  was  endowed  with  a  power  to  see 
into  the  nature  of  this  world  and  its  life,  such  as 
never  fell  to  the  lot  of  another  on  the  earth.  The 
good  he  knew,  and  the  bad  he  knew,  as  I  suppose 
it  was  never  known  before.  The  human  heart 
was  laid  bare  before  him  down  to  its  deepest 
recesses.  None  ever  felt,  as  he  did,  the  curse  of 
sin,  or  had  such  a  perfect  loyalty  and  love  for 
holiness.  Nature,  Providence,  Heaven,  and  Hell 
were  actual  presences,  solid  certainties  to  his 
deep,  true  sight.  He  came  out  of  the  carpenter's 
shop  :  and  when  he  had  pondered  over  this  solemn 
question  of  life  in  the  solitudes  beyond  Jordan, 
it  was  laid,  I  say,  upon  him,  as  it  had  been  laid 
on  his  fore-elder  long  before,  to  preach  on  the 
mighty  theme.  That  sermon  also  has  come 
5 


98  THE   FOLLY   OF   SOLOMON. 

down  to  us.  It  was  as  sure  to  do  that,  as  the 
sun  was  that  shone  when  he  was  preaching  it; 
and  to  me  the  difference  between  the  two  sermons 
bridges  the  whole  distance  between  the  two  great 
estimates  of  life,  taught  on  this  side  by  the 
Saviour,  and  on  that  by  Solomon. 

Listen  while  I  try  the  ring  of  a  few  sentences 
from  each  of  them.  "  Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is 
vanity,"  cries  the  first  preacher.  "  Blessed  are 
the  poor,  blessed  are  the  mourners,  blessed  are 
the  quiet,  blessed  are  the  hungry  for  the  right, 
blessed  are  the  giving  and  forgiving,  blessed  are 
the  pure-hearted,  blessed  are  the  peace-makers, 
and  blessed  are  the  sufferers  for  the  right,"  cries 
the  second.  "  Be  not  righteous  overmuch," 
cries  the  first.  "  Be  ye  perfect,  even  as  your 
Father  in  heaven  is  perfect,"  cries  the  second. 
"  That  which  befalleth  a  beast,  befalleth  a  man," 
cries  the  first.  "  The  very  hairs  of  your  head  are 
numbered,"  cries  the  second.  "  There  is  no 
knowledge  nor  wisdom  nor  device  in  the  grave," 
cries  the  first.  "  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you  ; 
and  I  will  come  again,  and  take  you  to  myself, 
that  where  I  am,  there  ye  may  be  also,"  cries  the 
second. 


THE   FOLLY   OF   SOLOMON.  99 

This  last  preacher  tested  life  also.  Whatever 
can  be  done  to  prove  all  is  vanity,  was  done  to 
him.  Giving  out  blessing,  getting  back  cursing. 
Surely,  if  ever  man  would  write  "  Vanity  of 
vanities "  over  life,  this  was  the  man  to  do  it ; 
if  ever  one  has  made  life  unspeakably  noble 
and  good  through  a  perfect  belief  in  it,  it  was  this 
man.  The  madman  crouching  among  the  tombs, 
the  lost  woman  on  the  street,  the  seaman  on  the 
wharf,  and  the  beggar  full  of  sores,  —  all  stood  in 
the  first  glory  of  a  celestial  life,  as  he  saw  them, 
the  lily  on  the  green  sward,  the  bird  on  the  spray, 
and  the  child  in  the  gutter,  claimed  in  his  heart 
kinship  with  the  cherubim  and  seraphim  up  in 
heaven.  God  was  to  him  the  Father.  The  future 
life  was  more  of  a  reality  than  the  present.  He 
saw  resurgam  written  over  every  grave,  and  could 
see  past  sorrow  and  pain,  the  perfect  end,  and 
say,  "  Of  all  that  my  Father  has  given  me,  I  have 
lost  nothing:  he  will  raise  it  up  at  the  last 
day." 

Now,  I  look  out  at  life  with  you,  and  we  can 
no  more  solve  some  of  its  problems  than  could  this 
sad-hearted  king,  because  we  have  in  our  own  lives 
some  darkness  or  trouble  like  that  which  he  felt. 


100  THE   FOLLY  OF   SOLOMON. 

There  are  moments  in  our  experience  when  fate 
seems  to  block  out  prayer,  when  the  awful  stead- 
fastness of  nature  comes  in  like  a  dead  wall 
against  providence,  and  the  vision  is  clouded, 
and  the  heart  is  faint.  It  is  because  we  have 
the  black  drop  in  our  veins  that  we  may  ponder 
the  great  problems  of  life,  sometimes  until  our 
hearts  break,  and  yet  be  no  nearer  their  solution, 
—  what  is  either  microscope  or  telescope  to  a 
blind  man.  But  as  I  grieve  over  these  things, 
and  come  no  nearer,  I  hear  this  strong  voice  of  a 
greater  than  Solomon,  crying,  "  Come  unto  me, 
all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will 
'  give  you  rest."  Then,  if  I  cannot  see  heaven  of 
myself,  let  me  look  at  it  through  his  eyes.  If 
earth  grows  empty  and  worthless  to  me,  let  me 
believe  in  what  it  was  to  him,  and  be  sure  that 
he  is  the  Way  the  Truth  and  the  Life ;  so,  hold- 
ing fast  by  faith  in  him,  I  may  come  at  last  to  a 
faith  in  earth  and  heaven  and  life  and  the  life  to 
come,  and  all  that  is  most  indispensable  to  the 
soul.  For  so  it  is,  that  he  is  the  Mediator  be- 
tween God  and  man ;  helps  my  unbelief ;  ever 
livcth  to  make  intercession  for  me ;  that  he  is  still 
eyes  to  the  blind,  and  feet  to  the  lame ;  that  he 


THE    FOLLY   OF   SOLOMON.  101 

preaches  deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  the  open- 
ing of  prison  doors  to  them  that  are  bound.  If  I 
cannot  pray  because  I  see  no  reason,  then  that 
bended  figure  on  Olivet  is  my  reason.  If  I  can- 
not distinguish  between  fate  and  providence,  let 
me  rejoice  that  he  can,  and  that  my  blindness 
can  make  no  difference  to  his  blessing.  So,  un- 
der this  Captain  of  my  salvation,  I  shall  be  more 
than  conqueror ;  and,  while  the  mournful  outcry 
is  rising  about  me,  "  Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is 
vanity,"  in  my  heart  shall  be  the  confidence  that 
all  things  work  together  for  good. 

"  And  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet, 
And  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed, 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
When  God  has  made  the  pile  complete." 


VI. 

FAITH. 

Heb.  xi.  1 :  "  Faith  . . .  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen." 

When  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
has  made  this  masterly  definition  of  a  true  faith, 
he  instantly  proceeds  to  make  the  thing  clear  by 
illustration.  He  says,  among  other  things,  a 
man  once  started  out  from  the  old  home,  to  set- 
tle in  a  new  country.  He  did  not  know  his  des- 
tination, only  his  direction.  Somewhere  west  by 
south  lay  the  land  he  was  to  own ;  and  so  west 
by  south  he  went.  He  was  possessed  by  two 
great  ideas :  one  was  to  make  a  new  home ;  the 
other,  to  fill  that  home  with  children,  and  so 
become  the  founder  of  a  family.  He  came  to  the 
land  at  last,  and  was  sure  about  its  being  the 
right  place,  because  the  same  thing  occurred  to 
assure  him  of  it  that  had  first  led  him  to  seek  it. 
The  voice  in  his  soul,  he  had  learned  to  know  as 
the  voice  of  God,  told  him  so. 
U021 


FAITH.  103 

But  time  went  on.  He  lived  to  be  an  old  man 
before  he  had  one  legitimate  son  ;  and  died  before 
that  son  —  then  getting  into  years,  and  very  shift- 
less—  had  children  born  to  him.  And  all  the 
land  he  could -call  his  own,  when  the  end  came, 
was  a  field  he  had  bought  years  before,  as  a  cem- 
etery for  his  dead.  This  was  what  his  life-long 
faith  had  brought  him  as  a  pledge  that  it  was  a 
faith  and  not  a  fancy,  —  a  shiftless,  childless  son, 
and  a  graveyard.  This  man,  says  the  writer,  was 
your  ancestor;  and  he  lived  and  died  as  fully 
satisfied  that  every  thing  would  come  out  right, 
as  if  he  had  seen  the  land  in  your  possession  these 
fifteen  centuries,  and  seen  you  swarming  as  the 
stars  in  the  sky  for  multitude. 

Then  he  tells  of  another,  —  a  man  educated, 
refined,  intellectual,  and  directly  in  the  way  of 
becoming  almost  any  thing  he  could  wish  to  be, 
in  one  of  the  foremost  nations  on  the  earth.  In 
the  country,  at  that  time,  there  was  an  alien  race, 
—  ignorant,  oppressed,  and  so  hateful  to  those 
who  oppressed  them,  that  they  never  sat  down 
together  at  the  same  table.  In  the  outset  of  his 
career,  that  young  man  turned  his  back  on  all 
his  bright  prospects,  took  sides  with  the  despised 


104  '         FAITH. 

and  hated  brickmakers,  —  for  that  was  what  they 
had  come  to ;  gave  up  the  society  of  cultivated 
men,  the  occupations  of  the  scholar  and  gentle- 
man, and  the  use  that  must  have  become  a  second 
nature ;  went  over  and  stood  beside  the  pooi 
multitude  ;  identified  himself  with  them ;  went  to 
work  as  a  shepherd,  until  the  time  should  come 
to  emancipate  them  from  their  thraldom ;  pon- 
dered the  thing  over  in  the  grassy  solitudes  of 
Midian  ;  and  then,  when  he  had  got  so  full  of  it 
that  he  could  be  quiet  no  longer,  went  up  to 
court,  bearded  the  king  in  his  palace,  and  de- 
manded their  freedom.  That  man,  says  this 
writer,  was  your  lawgiver ;  and  he  did  this  be- 
cause he  had  the  faith  in  the  future  which  your 
ancestor  had.  Here,  he  said,  is  the  making  of 
a  nation,  and  I  am  to  make  it.  Across  the 
desert  is  the  land  they  are  to  occupy ;  and  I 
am  to  lead  them  to  it.  Forty  years  after,  he 
was  at  the  end  of  his  career.  All  that  time  he 
had  striven  for  the  fulfilment  of  his  purpose,  had 
endured  every  thing  and  done  every  thing,  with 
this  faith  in  his  heart,  —  that  there  was  sure  to  be 
success  at  the  end. 

Then,  when  they  were  quite  ready  to  go  in  and 


FAITH.  1C5 

take  the  land,  the  man  knew  that  for  him  all  was 
over ;  that  the  deep  longing  of  eighty  years  was 
not  to  be  given  him  ;  he  could  never  stand  on  the 
land  he  had  made  every  sacrifice  to  reach.  But 
there  was  a  mountain-top  that  commanded  the 
country :  he  would  go  there,  and  take  one  great 
look  at  it.  He  went  up ;  it  lay  glancing  in 
the  sun,  as  Switzerland  lies  about  the  feet  of 
the  Rhigi ;  and,  with  the  light  of  it  in  his  eyes, 
he  died.  God's  angel  kissed  him,  and  he  slept. 
But,  as  he  looked  his  last,  he  no  more  doubted 
that  the  nation  for  which,  fourscore  years  before, 
he  had  pawned  his  position,  prospects,  likings, 
and  life,  would  live  on  that  land,  and  be  in 
some  way  what  he  had  wrought  for,  than  if  he 
had  seen  it  already  dotted  with  their  towers  and 
towns.  And  this  was  his  motive-power,  "  Faith 
.  .  .  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen." 

'What  a  mighty  thing  as  a  motive-power,  then, 
this  faith  must  be !  If  a  man  is  possessed  by 
it,  that  something  can  be  done ;  in  some  sure 
sense,  it  is  done  already,  and  only  waits  its  time 
to  come  into  visible  existence  in  the  best  way  it 
can.  Just  as  one  of  those  noble  groups  John 
Rogers  fashions  for  us  is  done  the  moment  the 
5* 


106  FAITH. 

conception  of  it  has  struck  his  heart  with  a  pang 
of  delight,  though  he  may  not  have  so  much  as 
the  lump  of  clay  for  his  beginning  ;  while  I  might 
stand  with  the  clay  in  my  hand  to  doomsday,  and 
not  make  what  he  does,  because  I  could  not  have 
the  "  Faith  .  .  .  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen." 

Indeed  this  is  the  sense  I  would  put  on  that 
strange  saying  of  Jesus,  — "  If  ye  have  faith  to 
say  to  that  mountain, '  Be  thou  removed  and  cast 
into  the  sea,'  it  shall  be  done,"  —  that  what  he 
wants  to  impress  on  us  is  not  so  much  the  moun- 
tain riven  out  of  its  deep  fastnesses  on  the  earth, 
as  the  faith  abiding  in  its  deeper  fastnesses  in  the 
heart.  "  If  ye  have  faith,  it  shall  be  done,"  I 
conceive  to  be  the  true  reading,  as  the  true  teach- 
ing is,  What  cannot  be  done,  cannot  be  of  faith. 
There  can  be  no  real  faith  in  the  soul  toward 
the  impossible  ;  but  make  sure  that  faith  is  there, 
and  then  you  can  form  no  conception  of  the  sur- 
prises of  power  hidden  in  the  heart  of  it. 

And,  trying  to  make  this  thing  clear  to  you,  I 
know  of  no  better  way  to  begin,  than  by  saying, 
that  faith  is  never  that  airy  nothing  which  often 
usurps  its  place,  and  for  which  I  can  find  no  bet- 
ter name  than  fancy,  —  a  feeling  without  fitness, 


FAITH.  107 

an  anticipation  without  an  antecedent,  an  effect 
without  a  cause,  a  cipher  without  a  unit. 

In  the  dawn  of  his  life,  a  lad  will  say,  "  I  am 
going  to  be  a  merchant  prince,  or  a  metropolitan 
preacher."  It  is  a  noble  purpose,  if  it  can  sink 
into  his  soul,  deepen  and  enrich  his  nature, 
and  so  become  the  ladder  by  which  he  will  rise 
into  the  heaven  of  his  hope.  But  if  to  be  what 
he  dreams  he  merely  dreams,  cribs  his  lessons, 
shirks  his  duties,  and  conducts  himself  generally 
like  a  loafer, —  what  he  may  call  a  faitli  is  merely 
a  very  foolish  fancy,  founded  on  nothing,  and  sure 
to  end  in  nothing  but  disappointment. 

Or  he  may  prepare  a  plan  of  his  life  at  thirty, 
on  the  theory  that  this  world,  with  all  its  treas- 
ures, is  a  sort  of  big  sweet  orange  he  can  suck 
with  an  endless  gusto,  and  then  give  Lazarus  the 
skin  ;  and,  whether  he  has  money  already  or  has 
to  make  it,  is  determined  to  have  a  good  time, 
because  he  believes  that  was  what  orange  and 
appetite  are  made  for.  Now,  is  that  a  faith  in  the 
world  and  life  ?  No :  it  is  a  fancy  that  will  leave 
his  orange  at  last  as  savorless  as  a  potato-rind, 
or  as  bitter  as  soot ;  and  set  him  some  day  longing 
to  get  the  cup  of  cold  water  out  of  the  hand  of  the 


108  FAITH. 

meanest  man  he  ever  left  to  rot,  if  he  could  only 
hope  to  get  with  it  the  power  that  man  has  to 
quench  his  thirst.  Or  he  will  make  ready  for  the 
life  to  come,  by  saying  prayers,  going  through 
motions,  making  professions,  shirking  responsibil- 
ities, worrying  down  doubts,  and  pampering  a 
minister.  And  he  will  call  that  faith.  Is  it  faith  ? 
It  is  the  merest  fancy,  the  play  of  the  imagina- 
tion, to  the  hurt  of  the  man,  hurtful  every  time, 
and  leading  to  tragical  ends,  whether  in  the  day- 
dream of  the  idle  boy  or  the  awful  soliloquies  of 
Hamlet. 

Fancies  are  never,  at  our  peril,  to  be  mistaken 
for  faith.  They  may  feel  just  as  good,  and  in 
some  wild  way  they  are  as  good,  to  the  maniac 
strutting  in  his  crown  of  straw,  as  to  the  king 
on  his  throne.  It  is  because  they  have  no  inti- 
mate and  inevitable  relation  to  the  set  and 
nature  and  law  and  life  of  things.  And  so  they 
can  never  be  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen.  A 
mere  fancy,  to  a  pure  faith,  is  as  the  "  Arabian 
Nights  "  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

Then  faith  is  not  something  standing  clean  at 
the  other  extreme  from  fancy,  for  which  there 
is  no  better  name  than  fatalism, —  a  condition 


FAITH.  109 

numbers  are  continually  drifting  into,  who,  from 
their  very  earnestness,  are  in  no  danger  of  being 
sucked  into  the  whirlpools  of  fancy ;  men  who 
glance  at  the  world  and  life  through  the  night- 
glass  of  Mr.  Buckle;  who. look  backward  and 
there  is  eternity,  and  forward  and  there  is 
eternity  ;  and  feel  all  about  them,  and  conclude 
that  they  are  in  the  grasp  of  a  power  beside 
which  what  they  can  do  to  help  themselves  is 
about  what  a  chip  can  do  on J  the  curve  at 
Niagara. 

And  yet  their  nature  may  be  far  too  bright 
and  wholesome  to  permit  them  to  feel,  that  the 
drift  of  things  is  not  on  the  whole  for  good. 
They  will  be  ready  even  to  admit  that "  our  souls 
are  organ-pipes  of  diverse  stop  and  various  pitch, 
each  with  its  proper  note  thrilling  beneath  the 
self-same  touch  of  God."  But,  when  a  hard 
pinch  comes,  they  smoke  their  pipe,  and  refer 
it  to  Allah,  or  cover  their  face  and  refer  it  to 
Allah  ;  but  never  fight  it  out,  inch  by  inch,  with 
all  their  heart  and  soul,  in  the  sure  faith  that 
things  will  be  very  much  after  all  what  they  make 
them,  —  that  the  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and 
they  work.     And  these  two  things  —  the    fancy 


110  FAITH. 

that  things  will  come  to  pass  because  we  dream 
them,  and  the  fatalism  that  they  will  come  to 
pass  because  we  cannot  avoid  them  —  are  never 
to  be  mistaken  for  faith. 

It  is  true  that  there  is  both  a  fancy  and  a  fatal- 
ism that  is  perfectly  sound  and  good,  —  the 
fancy  that  clothes  the  future  to  an  earnest  lad 
with  a  sure  hope ;  that  keeps  the  world  fresh 
and  fair,  as  in  natures  like  that  of  Leigh  Hunt, 
when  to  most  men  it  has  become  arid  as  desert 
dust ;  —  the  bloom  and  poetry,  thank  God,  by 
which  men  are  converted,  and  become  as  little 
children.  And  there  is  a  fatalism  that  touches 
the  very  centre  of  the  circle  of  faith, — which  Paul 
always  had  in  his  soul.  When  sounding  out 
some  mighty  affirmation  of  the  sovereignty  of 
God,  he  would  go  right  on,  with  a  more  perfect 
and  trusting  devotion  to  work  in  the  line  of 
it.  Fancy  and  fatalism,  are  the  strong  hand- 
maidens of  faith :  happy  is  the  man  whose  faith 
they  serve. 

But  what,  then,  is  faith  ?  Can  that  be  made 
clear  ?  I  think  it  can ;  and,  to  do  it,  I  will 
go  back  to  the  illustrations  I  cited  at  the  start ; 
very  noble  and  good,  as  I   doubt  not  you  are 


FAITH.  Ill 

aware,  when  they  are  divested  of  the  unreal  won- 
ders the  worship  of  the  ages  has  gathered  about 
them. 

A  young  man  feels  in  his  heart  the  conviction, 
that  there  in  the  future  is  waiting  for  him  a 
great  destiny.  Yet  that  destiny  depends  on  his 
courage,  and  that  courage  on  his  constancy  ;  and 
it  is  only  when  each  has  opened  into  the  other, 
that  the  three  become  that  evidence  of  things  not 
seen,  on  which  he  can  die  with  his  soul  sat- 
isfied,—  though  all  the  land  he  had  to  show  for 
the  one  promise  was  a  graveyard  ;  and  all  the 
line  for  the  other,  a  childless  son.  Another 
feels  a  conviction,  that  here  at  his  hand  is  a 
great  work  to  do,  —  a  nation  to  create  out  of 
a  degraded  mob,  and  to  settle  in  a  .  land 
where  it  can  carry  out  his  ideas  and  its  own 
destiny.  But  the  conviction  can  be  nothing 
without  courage  ;  and  courage,  a  mere  rushing 
into  the  jaws  of  destruction,  without  constancy. 
Only  when  forty  years  had  gone,  and  the 
steady  soul  had  fought  its  fight,  did  conviction, 
courage,  and  constancy  ripen  into  the  full 
certainty  which  shone  in  the  eyes  of  the  dying 
statesman,  as  he  stood  on  Nebo,  and  death  was 


112  FAITH. 

swallowed  up  in  victory.  And  yet  it  is  clear, 
that,  while  courage  and  constancy  in  these  men 
was  essential  to  their  faith,  faith  again  was  es- 
sential to  their  courage  and  constancy.  These 
were  the  meat  and  drink  on  which  the  faith  de- 
pended ;  but  the  faith  was  the  life  for  which  the 
meat  and  drink  were  made.  A  dim,  indefinable 
consciousness  at  first  it  was,  that  something  was 
waiting  in  that  direction,  a  treasure  hid  in  that 
field  somewhere,  to  be  their  own  if  they  durst 
but  sell  all  they  had,  and  buy  the  field.  Then, 
as  bit  by  bit  they  paid  the  price  in  the  pure  gold 
of  some  new  responsibility  or  sacrifice,  the 
clear  certainty  took  the  place  of  the  dim  inti- 
mation, and  faith  became  the  evidence  of  things 

not  seen. 

f 

This  is  the  way  a  true  faith  always  comes.  Con- 
versing once  with  a  most  faithful  woman,  I  found 
that  the  way  she  came  to  be  what  she  is  lay  at 
first  along  a  dark  path,  in  which  she  had  to  take 
one  little  timid  step  at  a  time.  But,  as  she  went 
on,  she  found  all  the  more  reason  to  take  another 
and  another,  until  God  led  her  by  a  way  she 
knew  not,  and  brought  her  into  a  large  place. 
Yet  it  was  a  long  while  before  any  step  did  not 


FAITH.  113 

make  the  most  painful  drafts  on  both  her  courage 
and  constancy.  And  so  the  whole  drift  of  what 
man  has  done  for  man  and  God  is  the  story  of 
such  a  leading, — first  a  consciousness  that  the 
thing  must  be  done,  then  a  spark  of  courage  to 
try  and  do  it ;  then  a  constancy  that  endures  to 
the  end ;  and  then,  whatever  the  end  may  be, — 
the  prison  or  the  palace,  it  is  all  the  same,  —  the 
soul  has  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen,  and  goes 
singing  into  her  rest. 

Now,  then,  a  faith  like  this  must  be  a  prime 
thing  in  your  life  and  mine,  or  we  shall  make  a 
dead  failure  of  it ;  and  it  must  be  rooted  in  us, 
as  it  was  in  these  old-time  men,  in  a  sure  con- 
viction of  some  divine  intention  to  be  wrought 
out  by  our  living. 

There  is  a  trick  of  humility,  in  some  men,  I 
cannot  believe  to  be  good.  It  is  that  which 
makes  them  so  very  humble,  that  they  cannot  try 
to  do  a  thing  worth  the  notice  of  earth  or  heaven. 
Believe  me,  that  is  not  a  possession,  but  a  desti- 
tution. It  is  not  because  I  have  humility  when 
I  feel  like  that,  but  because  I  want  faith.  I  can 
see  nothing  noble  in  myself,  because  I  have  not 
the  evidence  of  things  not  seen.     Well  may  any 


114  FAITH. 

man  be  humble,  in  a  fair,  manly,  and  manful 
humility  ;  but,  I  tell  you,  the  humility  that  will 
lead  me  to  believe  myself  a  nobody,  a  cipher,  a 
stick,  in  this  great  destiny-laden  world  and  time, 
is  no  better  than  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  What 
I  can  do  with  my  single  arm  may  be  mean 
enough  ;  but  that  is  not  the  question.  The  thing 
to  consider  is,  What  can  I  do  with  God  to  help 
me  ?  And  the  difference  of  the  one  and  the  other 
way  is  just  the  difference  between  a  man  trying 
to  push  a  train  of  cars  up  grade  by  his  single, 
puny  strength,  and  the  same  man  on  a  locomo- 
tive, with  the  steam  up,  moving  the  whole  mass 
by  a  turn  of  the  wrist.  The  man  at  the  rear  of 
the  train  can  do  nothing  :  how  should  he  ?  But 
give  him  the  lever,  and  the  faith  which  is  the  evi- 
dence of  things  not  seen,  and  all  things  are  pos- 
sible ;  because  then,  in  what  his  hand  finds  to  do, 
there  is  hidden  a  treasure  of  power  unspeakably 
greater  than  his  own.  The  fire  of  an  old  world 
before  Adam,  the  life-long  energy  and  inspiration 
of  Watt  and  Stephenson,  the  ponderous  strokes 
of  the  Nasmyth  hammer,  and  the  labors  of  a  thou- 
sand men,  all  lock  'into  his  hand  the  moment  it 
touches  that  lever 


FAITH.  115 

Now,  then,  we  want  to  make  sure  of  three 
things,  then  we  shall  know  that  this  faith  is  our 
own:  1.  That  God  is  at  work  without  me, — 
that  is,  the  divine  energy,  —  as  fresh  and  full 
before  I  came,  as  the  sea  is  before  the  minnow 
comes;  2.  That  he  is  at  work  through  me, — 
that  is,  the  divine  intention,  —  as  certainly  pres- 
ent in  my  life  as  it  was  in  the  life  of  Moses  ;  and, 
3.  That  what  we  do  together  is  as  sure  to  be  a 
success  as  that  we  are  striving  to  make  it  one. 
There  may  be  more  in  the  graveyard  than  there 
is  in  the  home.  In  the  moment  toward  which  I 
have  striven  forty  years  with  a  tireless,  passion- 
ate, hungry  energy,  my  expectation  may  be  cut 
off,  while  my  eye  is  as  bright  and  my  step  as  firm 
as  ever.  It  is  no  matter.  The  energy  is  as  full, 
the  intention  as  direct,  and  the  accomplishment 
as  sure,  as  though  God  had  already  made  the  pile 
complete.  And  when,  with  the  conviction  that  I 
can  do  a  worthy  thing,  and  the  courage  to  try 
and  the  constancy  to  keep  on,  I  can  cast  myself, 
as  Paul  did,  and  Moses  and  Abraham,  into  the 
arms  of  a  perfect  assurance  of  this  energy,  in- 
tention, and  accomplishment  of  the  Eternal, — 
feel,  in   every   fibre  of  my  nature,  that  in  Him 


116  FAITH. 

I  live  and  move  and  have  my  being,  —  I  shall 
not  fear,  though  the  earth  he  removed,  because  — 

"  A  faith  like  this  for  ever  doth  impart 
Authentic  tidings  of  invisible  things; 
Of  <ebb  and  How,  and  ever-during  power, 
And  central  peace,  subsisting  at  the  heart 
Of  endless  agitation." 

Let  the  lad,  in  this  spirit,  dream  of  his  great 
place,  then,  and  strike  for  it  with  all  his  might ; 
and  the  man,  in  the  thick  of  this  world's  work, 
take  heart  as  these  old  Hebrews  did,  and  be 
sure  that  to  do  what  honest  thing  he  has  to  do, 
with  courage  and  constancy  as  long  as  he  lives, 
is  not  only  the  way  to  heaven  hereafter,  but  the 
way  to  make  heaven  a  solid  and  shining  reality 
now.  Hume  said  the  teaching  of  ethics  in  Eng- 
land improved  the  manufacture  of  broadcloth. 
I  doubt  not  that  the  broadcloth  re-acted  again  on 
the  ethics,  because  all  things  work  together  for 
good  to  them  that  love  God. 

But  one  word  waits  now  to  be  said.  There,  on 
the  summit  of  all  great  doing,  stands  one  whose 
life  is  the  light  of  men  ;  because,  beyond  all  men, 
there  came  into  his  heart  this  conviction,  that  he 
had  a  great  destiny,  and  the  courage  to  live  for 
it,  and  the  constancy  to  hold  on  to  it,  together 


FAITH.  117 

with  an  assurance  of  the  divine  energy  and  in- 
tention and  accomplishment,  that  carried  him 
clean  through. 

He  was  despised  and  rejected  of  men,  a  man 
of  sorrows,  and  acquainted  with  grief;  but  it  bore 
him  through  that.  He  esteemed  himself  stricken, 
smitten  of  God,  and  afflicted  ;  but  it  bore  him 
through  that.  The  great  destiny  he  had  believed 
in  never  seemed  such  an  utter  failure  as  when  he 
was  dying  for  it,  and  the  men  that  had  clung  to 
him  and  believed  in  him  —  one  with  curses,  and 
the  rest  with  cowardice  —  forsook  him,  and  fled  ; 
but  it  carried  him  through  that.  He  died  in  the 
very  rose-bloom  of  his  life ;  but  it  carried  him 
through  that,  —  and  so  he  became  the  power  of 
God  unto  salvation  to  every  one  that  believeth. 

0  men,  working  for  God's  truth  in  this  time ! 
it  is  almost  natural,  when  you  see  what  appalling 
forces  of  evil  you  have  to  encounter,  that  you 
should  say, "  What  can  we  do  better  than  meet 
in  this  corner,  keep  a  spark  of  fire  burning  in  our 
own  hearts,  and  let  the  rest  go?"  If  that  is 
all  we  can  do,  we  cannot  do  that.  There  is  no 
greater  mistake  than  to  suppose,  that  this  divine 
fire,  of  faith  in  the  heart,  is  to  be  kindled  Indian- 


118  FAITH. 

fashion  by  rubbing  two  dry  sticks  together  in  a 
meeting-house.  I  must  have  faith  in  my  faith,  — 
believe  that,  if  my  convictions  in  religion,  in  civil 
policy,  in  morals,  and  in  life  altogether,  could  go 
wide  and  deep,  they  would  make  new  heavens 
and  a  new  earth  ;  and  then  go  to  work,  and  make 
them  go  wide  and  deep. 

"  Thou  must  be  true  thyself, 
If  thou  the  truth  wouldst  teach ; 
Thy  soul  must  overflow,  if  thou 
Another  soul  wouldst  reach,  — 
It  needs  the  overflowing  heart 
To  give  the  lips  full  speech. 
Think  truly,  and  thy  thought 
Shall  the  world's  famine  feed; 
Speak  truly,  and  thy  word 
Shall  be  a  fruitful  seed; 
Live  truly,  and  thy  life  shall  be 
A  great  and  noble  creed." 


VII. 

HOPE. 

I  want  to  say  a  word  about  Hope, — "the  real 
riches,"  David  Hume  said,  "  as  fear  is  the  real 
poverty ;  "  what  Jeremy  Collier  calls  "  that  vigor- 
ous principle,  which  sets  the  head  and  heart  to 
work,  animates  the  man  to  do  his  very  utmost, 
puts  difficulty  out  of  countenance,  and  makes 
even  impossibility  give  way ; "  "  the  highest 
recognition  of  the  pure  intellect,"  says  another 
famous  old  author,  "  and  the  earnest  of  its  im- 
mortality ; "  "  at  the  bottom  of  the  vase,"  the 
ancients  said,  "  when  every  other  thing  had  gone 
out  of  it,"  —  by  which,  no  doubt,  they  meant  the 
human  heart. 

And  I  can  think  of  no  better  way  of  getting 
at  the  root  of  the  matter,  than  to  begin  with  the 
primitive  root  of  the  word  itself,  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon.  It  is  something  that  means  to  open  the 
eyes  wide,  and  watch  for  what  is  to  come  ;  as  we 

[1191 


120  HOPE. 

have  all  noticed  children  do,  when  they  expect  to 
see  some  wonder  or  receive  some  gift.  Indeed, 
there  is  .another  word,  closely  akin  to  this,  from 
which  we  get  our  hope,  —  the  word  expect,  watch- 
ing for  what  is  to  come,  the  obverse  of  inspect, 
looking  at  what  has  come.  Another  closely- 
related  word,  much  more  frequently  used  in 
human  senses  in  England  than  in  America,  is 
gape;  especially  descriptive  of  the  way  in  which 
a  young  bird  in  the  nest  will  get  ready  for  food, 
at  the  slightest  intimation  that  it  may  be  coming. 
These  roots,  away  back  in  the  nursery  of  our 
tongue,  perhaps  all  belong  to  the  one  tangle, 
though  they  are  now  growing  as  separate  plants  ; 
and  they  certify,  clearly  enough,  how  the  seed  out 
of  which  they  first  sprang  is  the  instinct  by 
which  we  are  prompted,  both  for  this  life  and 
that  which  is  to  come,  to  look  out  eagerly  toward 
the  infinite ;  in  the  expectation,  that  there  is  in 
God  and  his  good  providence  that  which  will  be 
to  us  what  the  mother  bird,  poised  on  the  spray 
or  shooting  like  a  flash  to  her  place,  is  to  the 
helpless  fledgling  in  the  nest. 

And  I  want  to  ask,  before  I  go  further,  what 
can  be  more  beautiful  than  these  kindred  etymol- 


HOPE.     .  121 

ogies  ?■  A  child  on  tiptoe  with  its  eyes  wide  open, 
expecting,  because  an  intimation  has  come,  that 
presently  there  will  be  something  to  see  or  re- 
ceive ;  the  nestling  in  its  cradle,  waiting  for  its 
sure  morsel.  That  was  the  way  in  which  our 
first  fathers  tried  to  express  their  idea  of  what 
hope  is,  and  what  it  can  do.  They  said,  "  As  a 
child  opens  its  eyes,  and  a  young  bird  its  mouth, 
so  is  true  hope  in  the  soul  of  a  man," — expec- 
tation and  intimation  together,  certainty  reaching 
through  change,  the  flutter  of  a  fledgling's  heart, 
welded  fast  to  immutable  law. 

These  meanings  to  me,  again,  are  the  delicate 
dividing  line  between  Faith  and  Hope.  They  are 
twin  sisters,  and  hardly  to  be  known  apart ;  both 
as  'beautiful  as  they  can  be,  and  alike  beautiful, 
and  very  often  indeed  mistaken  each  for  the 
other.  Yet  this  need  never  be  ;  because  between 
them  there  is  this  clear  difference,  that  while 
Hope  expects,  Faith  inspects ;  while  Hope  is  like 
Mary,  looking  up-wavd,  Faith  is  like  Martha,  look- 
ing onward  ;  while  the  light  in  the  eyes  of  Hope  is 
high,  the  light  in  the  eyes  of  Faith  is  strong ;  while 
Hope  trembles  in  expectation,  Faith  is  quiet  in 
possession.  Hope  leaps  out  toward  what  will  be  ; 
6 


122  HOPE. 

Faith  holds  on  to  what  is  ;   Hope  idealizes,  Faith 
realizes  ;  Faith  sees,  Hope  foresees. 

And  so  it  comes,  that,  in  what  we  call -religion, 
faith  is  conservative,  while  hope  is  progressive. 
And  the  most  hopeful  men  are  always  drawn  into 
the  new  movements  of  their  age,  and  are  faithful 
to  them,  so  long  as  they  can  remember  Goethe's 
exhortation,  to  be  true  to  the  dream  of  their 
youth.  For  progression  is  up  stream,  while  con- 
servatism is  on  stream.  And  so,  if  a  man  gets 
afraid,  as  Luther  did,  or  tired  with  Erasmus, 
there  is  no  need  that  he  should  get  out  of  the 
boat,  or  pull  back :  all  he  need  do  is  just  leave 
go  of  the  stroke-oar,  and  the  thing  will  go  back 
of  itself  fast  enough.  It  is  so  that  not  a  few  who 
were  progressive  men  at  twenty-five  are  conser- 
vative men  at  fifty-five ;  yet  are  not  aware  that 
they  have  done  a  thing  to  make  themselves  con- 
servative. It  is  so  that  some  Unitarians  are 
far  less  liberal  than  some  Orthodox,  who  were 
once  a  long  way  behind  them ;  not  that  they  ever 
pulled  back,  but  they  did  not  pull  forward,  while 
the  Orthodox  did.  Now  they  are  away  down 
below ;  and  only  do  not  go  lower,  because  they 
have   drifted   into   the   still  waters  in  which  it 


noPE.  Vl-\ 

is  a  matter  of  the  most  absolute  indifference 
which  way  they  may  be  heading.  In  their  youth, 
their  watchword  was,  "  Be  sure  you  are  right, 
and  then,  —  go  ahead  ;  "  in  their  age  it  is,  "  Be 
sure  you  are  right,  and  then,  —  hold  on."  The 
trouble  with  such  men  is,  that,  while  they  hold  on 
to  the  faith,  they  have  let  go  of  the  hope  of  their 
religion.  And  so  they  inspect,  but  they  do  not 
expect ;  they  believe  in  what  has  come,  but  not 
in  what  is  coming.  So  they  expire  after  they 
have  ceased  to  inspire ;  they  die,  but  they  do  not 
make  many  live. 

You  get  a  grand  lesson  on  this  matter,  as 
you  go  from  the  mouth  to  the  springs  of  the 
Rhine.  Passing  through  the  fog  and  mist  of 
Holland,  as  through  a  stagnant,  grassy  sea,  you 
stretch  upward,  league  after  league ;  and,  as 
you  go,  the  country  gradually  changes.  The  air 
grows  clearer,  the  prospect  finer ;  every  thing 
that  can  stir  the  soul  begins  to  reach  down  to- 
ward you,  and  touch  you  with  its  glory.  But 
the  higher  you  go,  the  harder  is  your  going ; 
only  the  deepening  beauty  never  fails  you.  So 
at  last  you  come  into  Switzerland,  where  the 
blue  heavens  bend  over  you  with  their  infinite, 


124  HOPE. 

tender  light ;  and  the  mountains  stand  about 
you,  in  their  white  robes,  glorious  as  the  gates 
of  heaven,  with  green  valleys  nestling  between, 
that,  but  for  sorrow  and  sin,  are  beautiful  as 
Paradise.  And  all  about  you  is  a  vaster  vision, 
and  within  you  an  intenser  inspiration  than  can 
ever  be  felt  on  the  foggy  flats  below. 

It  is  the  difference  between  faith  alone,  and 
faith  and  hope  together.  A  man  may  be  afloat  on 
this  river  of  the  water  of  life,  down  on  the  stag- 
nant flats  of  Romanism  ;  or  he  may  pull  up  to  the 
outposts  of  the  mountains,  and,  looking  up  and 
down,  may  say,  "  That  is  enough  for  me  ;  now  I 
will  go  no  further."  Or  he  may  look  up,  and  see 
still,  blue,  misty  distances,  hinting  of  a  glory  his 
eye  has  not  seen  or  his  heart  conceived  ;  and  then 
go  on  again,  full  of  hope,  until  the  uttermost 
glory  receives  him  into  its  heart.  I  do  not  claim 
this  great  place,  for  my  ism  or  any  other. 
When  the  thing  is  done,  it  is  generally  done 
by  a  man  who  has  broken  away  from  the  isms  ; 
some   uplooking,   steady,   hopeful   soul,  that, — 

"  Bowing  hard  against  the  stream, 
Sees  distant  gates  of  Eden  gleam, 
And  doth  not  dream  it  is  a  dream." 

For  it  must  be  true,  as  God  is  true,  that  the  ut- 


HOPE.  125 

termost.  is  the  holiest  truth  ;  and,  not  until  a 
man  shall  win  his  way  to  the  very  steps  of  the 
great  white  throne,  can  he  at  his  peril  inspect 
and  cease  to  expect,  —  be  content  with  posses- 
sion, and  not  discontent  with  desire,  —  have  such 
an  absolute  faith  in  any  revelation,  as  to  have  no 
hope  of  a  higher  and  better. 

This  brings  me,  then,  to  the  consideration  of 
hope  itself  as  a  positive  matter.  And,  in  dis- 
cussing this,  I  cannot  do  better  than  begin  with 
the  figure  the  apostle  has  caught,  and  ask  you  to 
notice  the  striking  contrast  it  presents  to  many 
of  our  common  ideas  of  what  hope  is,  and  what 
it  can  do. 

Hope,  you  say.  Why,  that  is  the  most  intan- 
gible thing  a  man  can  entertain.  It  is  the  mere 
poetry  of  life,  —  the  play  of  summer  lightning  on 
the  night,  the  meteor  shower  across  heaven,  the 
sheen  of  the  aurora  in  winter.  "  Hope,"  says 
Owen  Feltham,  "  is  the  bladder  a  man  will  take 
wherewith  to  learn  to  swim  ;  then  he  goes  beyond 
return,  and  is  lost."     And  Lee, — 

"Hope  is  the  fawning  traitor  of  the  mind, 
Which,  while  it  cozens  with  a  colored  friendship, 
Robs  ns  of  our  best  virtue,  —  resolution." 

Now,  what  says  Paul  ?     He  has  a  picture  in  his 


126  HOPE. 

eye  of  a  Roman  soldier,  with  bronze  shoes,  bra- 
zen greaves,  breastplate,  sword,  shield ;  a  quick 
eye,  strong  hand,  steady  foot,  and  a  legion  shoul- 
der to  shoulder,  as  cool  in  the  thick  of  the  battle 
as  if  it  was  on  dress-parade.  But  that  is  because 
there  is  one  thing  more,  wanting,  which  the  man's 
hand  and  foot  and  eye  and  sword  and  shield 
would  all  come  short  of  his  need,  when  he  has  to 
hold  his  own  against  the  battle-axe  of  the  barba- 
rian,—  and  that  is  the  solid,  shining  helmet.  So 
the  apostle  makes  our  life  a  battle,  and  every 
man  a  soldier,  and  it  is  not  enough  that  the 
heart  be  protected  by  the  shield  of  faith, — 
the  head  must  be  guarded  also  by  the  helmet  of 
hope :  the  one  is  as  indispensable  as  the  other. 

And  a  brief  glance  at  thp  life  about  us  will 
soon  convince  you  that  the  man  is  right. 
"Whether  we  dip  into  our  own  experience,  or 
watch  that  of  other  men,  we  shall  still  conclude, 
with  wise  old  Samuel  Johnson,  that  our  powers 
owe  very  much  of  their  energy  to  our  hope ; 
and  whatever  enlarges  hope  exalts  courage ;  and, 
where  there  is  no  hope,  there  is  no  endeavor. 

Here  is' Cyrus  Field  conceiving  the  idea  of 
binding  the  Atlantic  with  a  cord,  —  of  making 


HOPE.  127 

that  awful  crystal  dome  a  whispering  gallery  be- 
tween two  worlds,  —  of  fulfilling  afresh,  in  these 
last  times,  the  old  prophecy,  that  "  as  the  light- 
ning cometh  out  of  the  east,  and  shineth  even 
unto  the  west,  so  shall  also  the  coming  of  the 
Son  of  man  be."  In  carrying  out  his  idea,  the 
man  has  two  servants  to  help  him,  —  the  faith 
that  it  can  be  done,  and  the  hope  that  he  shall 
do  it.  With  these  aids  he  goes  to  work.  Faith 
steadies  him  ;  hope  inspires  him.  Faith  works  ; 
hope  flics.  Faith  deliberates ;  hope  anticipates. 
Faith  lets  the  cable  go,  and  it  breaks,  and  is 
lost.  "  Nay,  not  lost,"  cries  hope,  and  fishes 
it  up  again.  If  hope  had  struck  work  in  Cyrus 
Field,  and  faith  alone  had  remained,  we  should 
not  this  day  have  had  this  nexus  formed  of  his 
manhood,  by  which  the  world  will  be  born 
again  to  a  new  life.  But  there,  through  the  long 
day,  the  noble  sisters  stood,  —  faith  in  Ireland, 
hope  in  Newfoundland ;  faith  in  the  Old  World, 
hope  in  the  New.  Faith  threw  the  cord,  hope 
caught  it.  And  "  I  saw  a  great  angel  stand  with 
one  foot  on  the  sea,  and  another  on  the  land ; 
and  he  sware  by  Him  that  liveth,  that  time  shall 
be  no  more." 


128  HOPE. 

Here  is  Garibaldi  conceiving  the  idea  of  a  new 
Italy.  He  has  faith  and  hope.  Austria,  Naples, 
and  Rome  are  against  him.  But  no  man  knows, 
or  can  know,  what  faith  and  hope  together  can 
do  in  a  man  of  the  pattern  of  Garibaldi.  What 
they  have  done  for  Italy  will  go  ringing  down  the 
ages.  They  have  "  subdued  kingdoms,  wrought 
righteousness,  escaped  the  edge  of  the  sword, 
turned  to  flight  the  armies  of  the  aliens.  Women 
have  received  their  dead  to  life  again  ;  others 
were  tortured,  not  accepting  deliverance,  that 
they  might  obtain  the  better  resurrection."  And 
in  these  very  days  they  are  singing  a  song,  as  we 
sang  "  John  Brown's  body  "  and  the  "  Battle-cry 
of  Freedom ; "  and  its  burden  is  their  hope  that 
Italy  will  be  free.  And  if  that  man  shall  still  keep 
his  hands  clasped  in  the  hands  of  these  sisters, 
this  good  work  will  never  cease,  until  Italy  shall 
rise  clean  out  of  the  dust,  and  the  old  mistress  of 
the  world  begin  a  new  career ;  in  which  her 
greatness  will  be  counted,  as  all  true  greatness  is 
counted,  by  the  worth  and  weight  of  the  service 
she  can  render  to  the  race. 

Very  curiously,  if  you  will  again,  you  can  see 
the  power  of  faith  without  hope  illustrated  in 


HOPE.  129 

China.  There  you  see  a  nation,  beside  which  in 
numbers  we  are  only  a  handful,  that  has  had  for 
ages  as  much  faith  and  as  little  hope  as  ever 
entered  into  any  civilization.  When  our  ances- 
tors were  savages,  they  had  advanced  about 
where  they  are  now.  Things  we  consider  the 
morning  stars  of  our  new  life  were  known  to 
them  centuries  before  we  invented  them!  And 
who  shall  say  what  China  might  not  have  been 
to-day,  had  she  marched  on  under  the  banner  of 
a  boundless  hope  ?  But  she  had  faith  without 
hope.  She  said,  "  My  learning,  literature,  sci- 
ence, art,  religion  arc  all  as  good  as  they  can 
be.  If  any  man  shall  add  unto  these  things,  I 
will  add  unto  him  plagues  ;  and,  if  any  man  shall 
take  away  from  these  things,  I  will  take  away  his 
part  out  of  the  book  of  life."  It  is  in  vain  that 
Raphael  has  painted,  and  Angelo  builded ;  and 
that  holy  men,  from  of  old,  have  written  as  they 
were  inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  "What  is  St. 
Peter's  to  the  great  Pagoda,  or  the  Immaculate 
Conception  to  the  gilded  Joss,  or  the  Evangels  to 
Confucius,  or  the  Monitor  to  the  royal  junk,  or 
any  other  thing  we  can  show,  to  the  glory  of  the 
children  of  the  Sun  ?     So  the  vast  empire  sits 


130  HOPE. 

still  on  the  stagnant  waters  of  conservatism, 
with  faith,  without  hope  ;  inspecting  for  ever, 
expecting  no  more,  and  with  Russia  creeping 
stealthily  toward  a  point  where  she  can  get  a 
fair  sight  at  her  heart.  Then  some  day,  there 
will  be  a  shot,  and  a  great  dead  carcass,  to 
which  the  Lion  of  England  will  gather  with  the 
Northern  Bear ;  and  on  which  the  Eagle  of 
America  will  swoop  down  swiftly,  screaming 
defiance  as  she  flies  at  the  Eagle  of  France.  But 
who  shall  say,  that  China,  with  the  noble  quali- 
ties no  doubt  she  has,  might  not  have  had  a 
peerless  place  in  the  world,  had  she  held  herself 
hopeful  and  expectant,  continually,  toward  every 
new  idea  and  discovery,  —  had  she  taken  for  a 
helmet  the  hope  of  salvation  ? 

And,  altogether,  this  fact  of  hope  and  its  influ- 
ence has  some  important  applications.  First,  in 
the  application  of  hope  to  religion,  to  the  deepest 
and  highest  things  of  which  we  have  any  knowl- 
edge, it  is  entirely  essential  to  remember,  that, 
when  this  man  tells  his  friends  to  take  for  a 
helmet  the  hope  of  salvation,  he  meant  the  hope 
he  himself  was  rushing  through  the  world  to  pro- 
claim, with  such  an  abandon  of  enthusiasm,  as 


HOPE.  131 

to  make  a  cool,  dispassionate  Roman  call  him  a 
lunatic. 

So  that  the  first  thing  really  in  the  exhortation 
is  the  hopefulness  of  the  cxhorter.  The  man  had, 
for  that  old  time,  just  what  Cyrus  Field  had  on 
the  Stock  Exchange  in  London,  —  the  splendid 
contagion  of  a  great  hope,  as  reasonable  to  him 
as  the  coldest  mathematical  demonstration,  while 
yet  it  might  seem  to  the  mathematician  a  mere 
wild  dream.  And  this  is  always  the  first  thing, 
the  greater  thing  than  faith, —  the  power  that 
sings  what  faith  can  only  say,  the  perfect  music 
to  the  noble  word. 

In  the  England  of  John  Wesley,  numbers  of 
men  were  his  peers  in  faith.  Butler,  Toplady, 
Romaine,  John  Newton,  and  a  whole  host  beside, 
got  as  firm  a  grip  on  what  faith  can  reach,  and 
said  words  as  noble  for  it  as  he  did.  But  Wesley 
had  more  hopefulness  in  his  little  finger  than  any 
other  man  of  them  had  in  his  whole  body,  not 
excepting  even  Whitcficld,  who  was  always  ham- 
pered by  the  chills  and  fever  of  Calvinism. 
Wesley  was  the  liberal  Christian  apostle  of  his 
day,  and  his  Methodism  the  liberal  Christianity. 
His  successors,  however,  have  long  since  ceased 


132  HOPE. 

to  pull  up  stream.  But  so  it  was,  that,  wherever 
Wesley  went,  men  caught  the  contagion  of  his 
great  hope,  and  then  ran  tirelessly  as  long  as 
they  lived,  kindling  over  all  the  world  And  so 
Macaulay  does  well  to  say,  that  no  man  can  write 
a  history  of  England  in  the  last  century,  who 
shall  fail  to  take  into  account  Wesley's  vast  in- 
fluence in  the  common  English  life. 

This  was  what  Paul  had  to  begin  with.  How 
did  he  get  it  ? 

We  are  watching,  just  now  in  this  country,  the 
solution  of  a  very  weighty  problem.  It  is  this : 
How  nearly  can  the  tree  of  knowledge  over- 
shadow ami  overgrow  the  tree  of  life  in  our  chil- 
dren, and  we  still  endure  to  see  it,  without  a 
revolution  ?  We  take  them  in  their  tender  age, 
make  them  do  an  amount  of  head-work  before 
they  are  through  the  high  school,  to  say  nothing 
of  college,  most  of  us  revolt  from  in  our  prime. 
They  grow  thin  and  pale  in  the  process,  lose 
vitality  —  and  what  there  is  no  better  word  for 
than  vim  —  every  year ;  and  so,  at  last,  they 
graduate,  with  a  fine  stock  of  knowledge,  and  an 
utter  loathing  of  it  in  many  cases ;  that  is,  half 
inanition  and  half  intellectual  dyspepsia. 


HOPE.  133 

In  a  deep,  spiritual  sense,  this  was  what  the 
world  had  come  to  in  religion  in  Paul's  time,  and 
what  Paul  had  come  to  when  the  great  hope 
struck  him  on  his  way  to  Damascus.  As  a  Jew, 
he  had  run  after  all  the  signs,  miracles,  and 
dogmas  of  his  church  ;  as  a  scholar,  had  dipped 
away  down  into  what  was  known  then  of  the 
nature  and  philosophy  of  things ;  and,  alike  as 
Pharisee  and  philosopher,  he  had  been  in  awful 
and  appalling  earnest,  only  to  find  that  somehow 
his  heart  was  dead  to  all  the  good  of  it.  It  was 
then  that  the  new  hope  had  caught  him,  given 
him  a  new  life,  and  made  him  seem  like  a  crazy 
man  to  the  Roman,  as  he  went  telling  of  the 
wonder.  But  as  the  chemist  can  keep  you  a 
piece  of  ice  in  a  white-hot  crucible,  so  in  Paul's 
nature  there  was  a  place  cooler  than  any  thing 
the  Roman  suspected,  where  the  worth  of  the 
new  hope  was  calmly  proven  right  along,  and 
always  with  the  same  result,  —  that,  wherever 
it  took  full  possession,  it  opened  the  soul  afresh 
to  earth  and  heaven,  started  all  sorts  of  new 
energies  and  activities,  and,  being  a  new  life, 
made  a  new  man. 

Then,  in  life  generally,  as  in  religion  particu- 


134  HOPE. 

larly,  this  hope  is  essential.  "  Those  sciences  are 
always  studied  with  the  keenest  interest,"  says 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  "  that  are  in  a  state  of 
progress  and  uncertainty.  Absolute  certainty 
and  completion  would  be  the  paralysis  of  any 
study  ;  and  the  last  and  worst  calamity  that  could 
befall  man,  as  he  is  now  constituted,  would  be  the 
full  and  final  possession  of  speculative  truth  he 
now  vainly  anticipates  as  the  consummation  of 
his  happiness."  And  so  it  is  always  true,  that 
the  restless  radicals  in  speculative  theology,  in 
any  age,  instead  of  being  infidels,  are  saviours, 
because  they  bring  in  a  new  hope,  and  break  in 
on  the  appalling  dogma  of  a  finality,  with  the 
news  that  yonder,  away  in  the  distance,  is  the 
intimation  of  a  new  world  better  and  more  beau- 
tiful than  this  the  time  lives  in  ;  and  then,  while 
a  timid  conservatism  is  crying  out  it  is  impos- 
sible, as  did  the  conservatism  of  old  Spain,  they 
put  out  up  stream,  like  Columbus,  and  find  it. 

I  take  no  credit  to  the  liberal  faith  we  have  no 
right  to  claim,  when  I  say  what  I  believe,  that 
posterity  will  do  us  justice  for  endeavoring  to 
save  even  the  Bible  from  contempt  in  the  mind 
of  this  age, —  first,  by  showing  a  better  truth  in 


HOPE.  135 

it  than  was  allowed  to  exist  in  the  dogmas  of  the 
churches  ;  and,  second,  by  affirming  that  there  is 
an  infinite  truth  over  and  above  the  Bible,  into 
which  all  men  are  welcome  to  penetrate  who  will 
or  can,  —  so  opening  the  vista  of  a  blessed  and 
boundless  hope  to  the  always  unsatisfied  mind 
and  soul. 

Then  I  must  make  this  general  hope  my  own 
particular  possession.  Our  time,  and  all  time, 
abounds  in  those  who  have  a  great  faith,  but  not 
a  great  hope  ;  the  solid  certainty  about  the  heart, 
but  not  the  shining  assurance  about  the  intellect. 
God  will  make  all  right  somehow,  they  feel ;  but 
tell  them  that  he  will  do  far  more  exceeding 
abundantly  above  all  that  they  can  ask  or  think, 
and  that  will  strike  them  as  something  they 
never  adequately  realized,  always  providing  they 
believe  you  Yet  it  is  this  alone  that  lifts  us  out 
of  the  world  of  inspection  into  that  of  expecta- 
tion ;  that  flashes  into  the  soul  the  vision  of  that 
shy,  trembling,  blue,  misty  distance,  on  the  far 
horizon  of  the  world  of  grace  and  truth  ;  hinting 
rather  than  revealing  its  beauty,  but  bringing 
untold  treasure  of  rich  experiences  by  the  way, 
as  we  pull  uj  stream  to  seek  it,  —  experiences  we 


136  HOPE. 

had  never  suspected,  staying  down  among  the 
flats. 

Friends,  I  would  not  like  to  think  of  heaven  as 
in  any  sense  a  finality.  If,  when  old  Bunyan's 
Christian  went  in  at  those  golden  gates,  he  gave 
up  a  great  hope  for  a  great  possession, — then, 
knowing  what  I  do,  and  only  what  I  do,  I  pity 
him. 

Yoimg  men  and  women,  with  this  life  mainly 
before  you,  get  this  hope.  I  have  had  twenty 
years  more  of  life  than  you  have  ;  and,  if  I  could 
tell  you  some  of  it  that  can  only  be  known 
where  no  secrets  arc  hid,  you  would  acknowledge 
it  was  as  hard  for  me  as  it  ever  can  be  for 
you.  I  call  back  to  you  from  my  vantage-ground 
of  twenty  years,  and  beseech  you  to  bring,  with 
a  great  faith,  a  great  hope ;  to  make  sure,  that 
there  is  not  a  day  you  can  live,  bending  over  your 
work,  with  a  sad  sense  perhaps  that  the  life  is 
going  out  of  you  in  the  merest  necessity  of 
living,  but  brings  you  nearer  to  some  divine  sur- 
prise of  blessing,  some  great  unfolding  of  God's 
very  glory. 

Men  and  women  in  middle  life,  as  I  am ;  with 
the  bloom  gone   from  some  things  that  seemed 


HOPE.  137 

very  beautiful,  as  they  lay  glistening  in  the  dew 
of  the  morning ;  with  ashes  for  beauty,  yonder  in 
the  cemetery  ;  and  with  a  dumb,  daily  care  about 
things  that  must  be  cared  for ;  with  children 
growing  up,  for  whose  future  you  plan  and  pray  ; 
with  a  faith  still  in  the  things  from  which  the 
bloom  has  gone,  and  that  God,  who  has  given  you 
ashes  for  beauty,  will  some  time  give  you  beauty 
for  ashes  ;  that  things  will  come  right  generally 
at  last,  and  that  the  children  will  some  time 
scramble  into  the  right  place  as  you  did,  —  I 
charge  you,  as  one  to  whom  God  has  entrusted 
the  keys,  —  the  sense  and  faculty  of  realizing 
that  his  dark  ways  open,  —  to  take  for  your  hel- 
met the  hope  of  salvation.  Whatever  you  do, 
never  let  a  painful  inspection  rob  you  of  a  great 
expectation.  If,  as  you  live,  you  try  to  live  faith- 
fully, then,  as  the  Lord  liveth,  try  to  live  hope- 
fully, or  you  will  miss  the  better  half  of  your 
living.  Do  you  go  to  your  graves  these  winter 
days,  and  observe  how  the  flowers  you  tended 
there  last  summer  are  dead,  and  think  of  other 
and  fairer  dead,  of  which  those  were  but  the  poor 
intimation.  For  the  sake  of  all  that  can  fill  you 
with  the  everlasting  life,  open  your  heart  to  the 


138  HOPE. 

sense  of  that  spring-tide,  sure  to  rise,  when  the 
sun  comes  back ;  and  tell  your  soul,  that  is  but 
the  intimation  also  of  the  spring-tide  poor  David 
Gray  sang  about,  as  he  lay  a-dying,  in  the  first 
bloom  of  his  life, — 

"  There  is  life  with  God 
In  other  kingdoms  of  a  sweeter  air: 
In  Eden  every  flower  is  blown.    Amen." 

So  may  all  sing,  if  to  an  inreaching  faith  they 
will  add  an  outlooking  hope,  —  will  know  that 
this  flutter  of  the  heart,  that  causes  them  to  open 
their  eyes  wide,  reaches  for  its  fruition  into  cer- 
tainties immutable  as  heaven. 


VIII. 

LOVE. 

1  Cor.  xiii.  13 :  "  Now  abideth  faith,  hope,  charity,  these  three ;  but 
the  greatest  of  these  is  charity." 

It  was  my  lot  lately  to  speak  to  you  about  two 
prime  things  in  our  life,  —  Faith  and  Hope.  One 
other  thing  still  remains  to  be  considered, — 
Love ;  in  Paul's  estimation,  the  essence  of  all 
professions  and  possessions  in  religion  whatever. 
I  want  to  speak  to  you  of  this  greatest  thing  now ; 
to  try  and  tell  you  what  it  is,  what  it  can  do,  and 
so  what  we  are,  if  we  possess  it ;  and,  by  conse- 
quence, what  we  are  not  if  we  do  not  possess  it, 
though  we  may  have  every  thing  beside  that  earth 
and  heaven  can  give.  In  the  text,  the  word  is 
translated  charity.  It  is  a  term  that  touches,  at 
the  best,  only  one  little  corner  of  love.  In  Wick- 
liffe's  time,  however,  from  whose  Bible  this  trans- 
lation was  adopted  into  our  version,  love  and 
charity  were  as  nearly  related  as  charity  and 
benevolence  are  now.     This  can  be  understood, 

[139] 


140  LOVE. 

if  we  will  remember  that  charity  and  dear,  in  the 
sense  of  precious,  belong  to  the  one  root.  They 
spring  from  what  was  common  enough  when 
they  were  born,  —  dearth  or  scarcity.  Food  was 
then  precious,  much  esteemed,  much  loved.  The 
generation  to  which  my  grandfather  belonged 
had  some  such  idea  as  this.  They  lived  through 
a  time  when  a  succession  of  bad  seasons,  and  a 
wasteful  war,  had  reduced  the  whole  working 
population  of  England  to  miserable  black  bread. 
Then  good  bread,  sound  and  white,  was  dear ; 
not  as  it  is  now  to  us  in  money  value  merely,  but 
in  this  primitive  value  of  something  to  love,  a 
small  piece  being  given  to  the  children  sometimes 
on  a  Sunday,  as  a  very  precious  thing. 

In  that  way,  we  get  at  the  old  meaning  of  this 
word  charity.  Five  hundred  years  ago,  it  was  so 
understood  generally,  as  to  warrant  its  adoption 
by  Wickliffe  in  preference  to  love.  In  that  sense, 
Milton  still  uses  it,  three  hundred  years  after,  in 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  in  the  lines, — 

"  Which  of  ye  will  bo  mortal,  to  redeem 
Man's  mortal  crime? 
Dwells  in  all  heaven  a  charity  so  dear?" 

And  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke  still  later  says,  "  Charity 


LOVE.  141 

doth  not  merely  signify,  as  we  use  it  now,  alms- 
giving to  the  poor ;  but  universal  love  and  good- 
will to  all  men."  The  word  must  have  gone  out 
of  use  as  expressing  love,  however,  at  a  very 
early  day,  —  perhaps  about  the  time  when  people 
ceased  to  put  any  love  into  their  charity,  making 
it  merely  a  duty  ;  for,  a  century  only  after  Wick- 
liffe,  Coverdale  renders  the  word  as  we  have  it, 
Cranmer  follows  Coverdale,  and  the  Geneva  Bible 
both.  And  I  have  dwelt  this  moment  on  the 
matter,  —  first,  that  you  might  see  how  it  stands ; 
and,  second,  that  you  may  see  something  else  that 
is  not  without  importance,  so  long  as  we  prefer 
the  Bible  in  our  worship  before  all  other  books. 

A  few  Sundays  ago,  I  read  the  lesson  for  the 
morning,  a  part  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
from  the  translation  of  Andrews  Norton,  no  doubt 
one  of  the  best  in  existence ;  and,  wherever  it 
differs  from  the  one  we  use,  generally,  the  nearest 
right.  I  heard  a  number  of  comments  afterward 
on  the  change.  I  did  not  hear  one  say  it  was  for 
the  better :  everybody,  on  the  whole,  preferred  the 
old  version.  So  in  my  heart  I  do.  I  have  read 
it  ever  since  I  read  any  thing,  and  my  fathers 
before  me  for  many  generations.     Our  mothers 


142  LOVE. 

read  it  as  the  sleeping  babes  nestled  beside  them ; 
and,  when  the  babes  were  old  men  of  fourscore, 
and  dying,  the  minister  read  it  to  the  departing 
soul,  and  over  the  dust  by  the  grave.  And  so  no 
wonder  it  is  in  our  hearts.  But  what  about  the 
head  ?  We  owe  something  to  that.  When  the 
German  peasant  said  to  the  priest,  "  I  cannot 
repeat  the  Lord's  Prayer,  but  I  can  give  you  the 
tune,"  he  did  precisely  what  we  (who  would  have 
laughed  at  him)  do  every  time  that  we  prefer  the 
sound  to  the  sense,  —  the  old  familiar  words,  now 
only  partly  true,  to  the  truth  and  life  of  Norton 
and  Noyes.  I  think,  if  the  term  "  villain"  had 
been  so  fortunate  as  to  be  the  best  translation, 
at  the  time  our  version  was  made,  of  the  word 
"  servant,"  as  it  was  in  the  elder  English,  and 
then  the  old  sense  had  left  it  as  it  has,  there 
would  be  great  numbers  of  worshippers  of  the 
common  version,  quite  ready  to  show  what  a 
sound,  well-flavored  word  it  is,  especially  if  they 
were  not  servants.  The  truth  is,  the  best  equiv- 
alent for  either  Greek  or  Hebrew  is  always  the 
English  that  can  give  me  the  keenest  edge  or  the 
finest  aroma  of  the  original  for  which  it  stands ; 
and,  that  word  being  the  truest,  is  therefore  the 


LOVE.  143 

t 

most  sacred.  So  that  not  this,  because  it  is  old, 
or  that,  because  it  is  new,  but  that  which,  with 
the  letter,  can  transfer  to  me  the  spirit  of  the 
original,  is  the  most  sacred  book. 

This  said,  the  question  comes  up  for  our  con- 
sideration, What  is  this  love,  of  which  Paul  makes 
such  marvellous  account  ?  In  the  chapter  in 
which  my  text  occurs,  he  conducts  one  of  the 
most  striking  arguments,  by  affirmation,  ever 
made,  to  show  what  a  supreme  thing  it  is.  He 
supposes  himself  possessing  the  finest  qualities, 
excepting  this  one,  that  can  be  imagined.  An 
eloquence  so  noble  as  to  combine  manly  breadth 
with  angelic  insight,  —  I  may  have  that,  he  says. 
Then  he  takes  a  brazen  instrument  and  blows 
through  it  one  of  those  discordances  we  have  all 
heard  from  the  thing,  and  says,  If  I  have  not  love, 
my  eloquence  is  that.  Or  I  may  be  able  to  dive, 
by  my  intuitions,  into  the  very  heart  of  things 
(with  Shakspeare,  he  would  have  said,  if  he  were 
writing  the  Epistle  now),  or  may  hold  in  my  brain 
the  whole  encyclopedia  of  human  knowledge,  and 
the  result  may  be  a  power  that  can  lift  mountains 
out  of  their  sockets ;  but,  if  I  have  not  love,  what 
I  have  and  what  I  am  is  nothing.  Nay,  with 
7 


144  LOYE. 

■» 

all  this  I  may  combine  a  charity  so  boundless,  as 
to  leave  me  at  last  as  poor  as  the  poverty  I  have 
stripped  myself  to  relieve ;  and  a  devotion  so 
absolute,  that  I  will  be  burnt  at  the  stake.  But 
eloquence,  intuition,  knowledge,  faith,  benevo- 
lence, and  devotion,  altogether,  are  merely  so 
many  ciphers,  if  I  have  not  love. 

Now,  is  this  wonderful  governing  quality  capa- 
ble of  being  made  simple  and  clear,  like  faith  and 
hope,  so  that  I  may  know  inevitably  whether  I 
possess  it  ?  —  must  be  a  great  question,  if  Paul  is 
right,  as  no  doubt  he  is.  What,  then,  is  this 
love  ?  It  is  a  word  traceable  altogether  to  many 
different  roots.  That  could  not  be  otherwise ; 
because,  in  every  rivulet  that  now  makes  this 
river  of  the  English  tongue,  it  must  have  been 
present  in  one  form  or  other.  Love  would  natu- 
rally be  one  of  the  very  first  things  the  most 
abject  savages  must  find  a  name  for,  after  getting 
a  word  to  express  each  of  the  bare  needs  of  life. 
The  first  time  the  man  of  the  forest  tried  to  win 
a  maiden  in  some  higher  way  than  by  the  ancient 
contrivance  of  carrying  her  off  by  force,  he  would 
need  the  word.  The  first  time  the  mother  had  to 
tell  of  the  mysterious  glow  in  her  heart  toward 


LOVE.  145 

her  babe  in  its  helplessness,  she  would  need  the 
word.  And  so  love,  in  one  root,  is  longing;  in 
another,  goodness  ;  in  another,  preference  :  but,  to 
me,  the  right  rests  at  last  with  Adam  Clarke's 
idea,  that  it  is  the  Teutonic  word  leben, —  life. 
M  This  is  life"  these  children  of  nature  said,  when 
they  first  began  to  be  conscious  of  this  glowing 
wonder  in  their  hearts.  "  You  are  my  life,"  the 
man  said  when  he  went  to  win  the  maiden ;  and 
the  mother,  when  she  caught  her  nursling  to  her 
heart.  Love  is  to  live  ;  and  not  to  love  is  not  to 
live.  And  it  was  exactly  the  definition  that  John 
hit  on  away  off  across  the  world,  when  he  wanted 
to  tell  of  the  nearest  and  dearest  of  all  the  rela- 
tions the  soul  can  hold  to  God. 

And  so,  if  you  will  recall  what  was  said  about 
faith,  —  that  it  is  inreaching ;  and  hope,  that 
it  is  outlooking, —  we  come  then  to  what  we 
are  to  understand  of  love,  —  that  it  is  in  being. 
By  faith  I  stand ;  by  hope  I  soar ;  by  love 
I  am.  Faith  assures  me,  hope  inspires  me ; 
love  is  me,  at  my  best.  "  Love,"  says  an 
old  French  lexicon,  "  is  the  sameness  of  souls." 
—  "  Love,"  says  Luther,  "  is  that  by  which  I  de- 
sire to  be  in  perpetual  union  with  that  I  love."  — 


146  LOVE. 

"  Love,"  says  Dr.  South,  "  is  the  spirit  and  spring 
of  the  universe."  —  "Love,"  says  Emerson,  "is 
our  highest  word  and  synonym  of  God."  —  "  And 
love,"  says  Solomon,  "  is  strong  as  death."  But, 
the  instant  we  read  that,  we  say  Solomon  does 
not  reach  the  mark  in  his  definition,  any  more 
than  he  did  in  his  life ;  for,  in  the  history  of  hu- 
manity, millions  of  proofs  have  been  given  that 
love  is  stronger  than  death,  and  is,  as  Erasmus 
says,  "  as  immortal,  when  it  is  rooted  in  virtue,  as 
virtue  herself." 

And  it  is  only  as  we  keep  close  to  this  idea 
and  fact,  —  of  love  as  life,  —  that  we  can  prevent 
its  being  confounded  with  other  and  baser  things, 
that,  getting  mixed  up  with  it  in  our  language, 
act  like  the  baser  metals  mixed  up  in  the  coinage 
of  a  country,  giving  the  real  gold  and  silver  a 
lower  relative  value,  and  debasing  the  whole  fair 
standard  of  the  commonwealth.  Love,  for  exam- 
ple, is  not  lust.  Because  love,  for  whatever  may 
in  itself  be  good,  adds  just  so  much  as  there  is  in 
what  I  love  to  life  ;  while  lust  for  that  very  thing 
exhausts  life.  Here  are  two  men  devoted  to 
money-making.  In  the  one,  money  is  a  love ;  in 
the  other,  a  lust.     In  the  heart  in  which  it  is  a 


LOVE.  147 

love,  it  acts  like  a  fire,  expanding  and  softening ; 
in  the  heart  in  which  it  is  a  lust,  it  acts  like 
a  frost,  hardening  and  contracting.  In  Peabody 
and  Peter  Cooper,  —  and  I  wish  to  heaven  I 
could  put  some  noble  Chicago  man  into  the  cata- 
logue,—  in  men  like  these  it  is  a  love.  Their 
hearts  grow  with  their  growing  fortunes.  They 
are  solid  men  ;  they  do  solid  things,  —  found 
great  libraries  and  institutes,  inaugurate  noble 
movements  for  model  dwellings  for  the  poor, 
while,  at  the  same  time,  they  are  sustaining  vast 
commercial  interests,  that  make  the  difference 
between  Glasgow  and  Cork. 

But,  in  numbers  we  have  all  known  or  heard 
of,  the  love  of  money  is  a  lust,  and  acts  like  a 
frost,  hardening,  contracting,  and  finally  killing 
every  large  idea  and  generous  impulse  in  their 
souls.  They  will  say  the  money  is  my  own,  to  do 
as  I  like.  It  is  only  their  own,  as  if  they  owned 
a  glacier  that  was  for  ever  accumulating  over 
them,  and  lived  at  the  bottom  of  one  of  its  chasms. 
Their  money  is  their  own,  as  that  ice  would  be 
their  own,  —  it  is  their  shroud  and  coffin  and 
grave.  When  we  say  money  is  the  root  of  all 
evil,  we  mean  lust  of  money.     So  long  as  you 


148  LOVE. 

can  be  sure  that  the  fortune  you  are  making  is 
"  expanding  with  the  expanding  soul,"  you  may 
be  sure  that  it  is  only  good,  and  that  continually ; 
because  it  is  so  much  added  to  your  life,  now 
and  for  ever.  The  love  of  money  to  the  lust  of 
money  is  as  the  preparation  for  heaven  and  hell. 

This  is  still  more  clearly  true,  when  we  touch 
another  thing,  about  which  we  never  think  of 
speaking  as  the  love  of  this  or  that,  even  though 
we  put  such  an  affix  to  the  love  of  God  ;  but  con- 
sider it  enough  just  to  say  the  word,  and  it  tells 
the  whole  tale.  The  most  primitive  idea  of  the 
relation  of  the  man  and  woman  in  our  Bible  is 
not  at  all  what  we  make  it  now,  —  that  the  man 
is  the  volume  and  the  woman  the  supplement.  It 
is  rather  that  the  man  is  the  first  volume,  good 
enough  as  far  as  it  goes  ;  but,  if  there  is  to  be  no 
second,  more  aggravating  than  if  there  wasn't 
any,  —  a  story  half  told  and  then  broken  off  just 
as  we  began  to  get  interested,  demanding  not  a 
supplement  but  a  complement,  to  make  it  com- 
plete. So  the  thing  stands  in  the  first  Hebrew 
dawn  of  time.  The  man  is  as  good  as  the  Lord 
can  make  him  ;  but  then  there  is  nothing  for  even 
the  divine  Worker  to  do  but  put  him  to  sleep 


LOVE.  149 

until  he  makes  a  woman.  And  the  first  thing  he 
tells  him  about  her,  as  he  bids  them  join  their 
hands,  is,  that  she  shall  stand  to  him  in  the  line 
of  that  love  which  is  life,  —  shall  not  be  some- 
body else,  but  his  own  intimate  self,  as  he  hers  ; 
soul  blending  with  soul,  and  becoming  one,  as  two 
drops  of  dew  become  one  in  the  heart  of  a  flower- 
cup.     It  is  so  for  ever  with  all  true  love. 

When  the  young  man,  living  in  a  room,  eating 
in  a  restaurant,  and  troubled  about  more  things 
than  ever  Martha  was,  feels  at  last  how  contracted 
and  poor  such  a  life  is  at  the  best,  and  says  in 
his  heart,  "  This  is  not  living :  I  must  get  me  a 
wife,"  —  whatever  may  be  his  idea  of  the  wife  he 
wants,  the  word  he  uses  to  describe  his  condi- 
tion reaches  away  into  the  truth.  It  is  not  living : 
it  is  just  half  living,  and  probably  not  that.  His 
heart  is  crying  out  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

Or  when  the  maiden  teaching  school,  working 
in  the  store,  helping  to  keep  house  at  home, 
doing  whatever  a  maiden  may  do,  thinks  of  a 
question  that  might  be  asked  and  an  answer  that 
might  be  given,  if  all  was  right  that  seems  most 
wrong,  —  she  is  dreaming  of  another  life,  in 
which  a  double  care  and  sorrow  and  pain  is  only 


150  LOYE. 

another  name  for  a  deeper  color,  a  more  exqui- 
site texture,  and  a  double  warp  and  woof  running 
through  the  whole  web  of  her  future  existence. 
That  is  the  love  which  is  life,  —  the  love  whereby 
the  two  becoming  one  doubles  the  intrinsic  value 
of  each  for  ever. 

But  there  is  that  calling  itself  love  which  is 
lust,  —  something  that  seeks  not  a  life,  but  an 
appanage  to  life,  and  reaps  for  its  sowing  a 
harvest  of  gray  ashes.  Love  informs  life ;  lust 
exhausts  it.  Love  is  the  shining  sun,  lust  is 
the  wandering  star.  When  I  remember  some 
sights  I  have  seen,  —  how  men  and  women  have 
mistaken  lust  for  love,  and  then,  when  they  had 
found  out  their  mistake,  have  gone  on  dragging 
their  chain,  biting  it,  and  growing  ever  more 
bitter  the  longer  they  live,  —  I  have  wanted  to 
lift  up  my  voice  like  a  trumpet,  to  show  men  and 
women  this  distinction,  so  that  it  shall  be  for 
ever  unmistakable  ;  and  to  cry  to  young  men  and 
maidens,  especially,  that  hear  me,  "  How  can  ye 
escape,  if  ye  neglect  so  great  salvation  ?  " 

But,  beside  such  special  applications,  there  is 
no  direction  in  which  wc  can  turn  but  this  spirit 
meets  us  with  its  sweet,  solemn  face,  demanding 


LOVE.  151 

to  be  put  in  the  van  of  our  endeavor,  or  there 
can  be  no  wonder  and  glory  of  success.  Con- 
sider the  lesson  we  have  learned  in  our  war. 
When  we  plunged  into  that  red  sea,  the  gentle- 
men of  England  were  looking  on.  They  stated 
frankly  their  opinions,  —  a  few  on  one  side  ;  a 
multitude  on  the  other.  The  few  said  we  should 
hold  our  own:  they  were  sure  of  it,  —  John 
Bright,  Thomas  Hughes,  John  Forster,  of  Brad- 
ford, and  all  the  men  after  their  heart.  The 
great  multitude  which  no  man  can  number  said 
we  had  gone  under.  The  "  Times  "  thundered  — 
the  "  Saturday  Review "  sneered,  and  M.P.'s 
made  conclusive  addresses  to  the  Honorable 
House  on  the  failure  of  democratic  institutions. 
What  made  this  difference  among  men  of  about 
equal  opportunity  ?  I  will  tell  you.  John 
Bright,  Thomas  Hughes,  John  Forster,  and 
all  that  stood  in  their  company,  loved  us  with 
a  love  that  made  their  hearts  throb  and  their 
souls  sing ;  so  that  Faith  stood  square,  and 
Hope  plumed  her  wings,  and  they  became  the 
glad  ministers  of  their  leader  and  guide.  And 
what  made  other  men,  whose  names  I  will  not 
celebrate  by  this  momentary  mention,  sure  it 
7* 


152  LOVE. 

was  all  over  ?  It  is  the  weakest  word  I  can  find, 
when  I  say  they  did  not  love  us.  They  had  no 
faith  in  us  and  no  hope  for  us,  because  they  had 
no  love ;  "  for  now  remaineth  faith,  hope,  love, 
these  three ;  but  the  greatest  of  these  is  love." 
It  is  entirely  possible,  that,  in  the  beginning,  they 
might  not  differ  very  much  in  their  conclusions  ; 
but  as  somewhere  on  this  continent  the  water 
parts  on  the  two  sides  of  a  barn,  —  this  way  to 
sunshine  and  freedom  ;  that  to  the  fetters  of 
frost,  —  so  the  two  orders  of  men  were  positive 
and  negative.  And  as  the  days  went  on  the  love 
was  life,  but  the  want  of  it  death. 

When  a  man  really  loves  a  land  and  a  cause, 
it  piles  great  stores  of  life  into  his  heart;  so 
that  he  may  even  come  to  some  dreadful  pass 
where  faith  and  hope  fail  him,  and  yet  love  shall 
carry  him  through.  One  morning,  when  I  was 
in  Europe,  I  had  two  things  present  themselves 
to  be  done.  It  was  in  Lucerne.  Louis  Napoleon 
had  come  the  night  before  with  the  empress. 
They  could  be  seen ;  or  there  was  an  old  bridge 
to  be  seen,  on  which  the  good  city  had  painted 
some  of  the  most  notable  things  in  her  history. 
I  neglected  the  emperor,  but  I  saw  the  bridge : 


LOVE.  153 

and  here  is  one  of  the  stories  it  had  to  tell. 
Hundreds  of  years  ago,  that  Austria,  now  shorn 
of  the  strength  she  so  prostituted,  went  into 
Switzerland  to  devour  her  bit  of  freedom, — 
burnt  the  harvests,  besieged  the  cities,  and 
prepared  to  crush  out  the  band  that  armed  to 
oppose  her.  There  was  little  room  for  faith  or 
hope  in  such  a  contest ;  but  then  all  the  more 
room  for  an  utterly  limitless  love.  You  know 
the  story.  The  enemy  advanced,  a  solid  wall 
of  steel,  and  began  to  creep  round  the  little 
band.  Switzer  after  Switzer  fell  trying  to  break 
in  and  turn  the  tide  of  battle.  There  might  be 
hope  only  if  the  wall  was  broken,  and  the  peas- 
ants could  come  within  the  line.  Then,  in  the 
last  dreadful  moment,  one  went  rushing,  for  love 
of  Switzerland,  on  the  solid  ranks  of  the  spears, 
broke  the  close  array,  by  gathering  them  into 
his  own  breast,  —  that  is  what  they  show  you 
painted  on  the  panels  of  the  old  bridge  at  Lu- 
cerne, and  I  have  never  regretted  going  to  fill 
my  heart  afresh  with  it,  instead  of  going  to  see 
the  Emperor:  it  was  the  chance  of  getting  a 
look  at  a  mortal  or  an  immortal.  I  went  to  see 
the  immortal,  —  to  see  the  shrine   of  the   man 


154  LOVE. 

who  had  the  love  which  is  life  so  strong  in  his 
heart,  that  his  life  itself  is  still  in  its  prime,  after 
almost  five  hundred  years. 

And  this  is  the  truth  about  our  life,  in  what- 
ever way  we  test  it.  The  love  which  is  life  alone 
can  make  life  all  it  must  be,  whatever  we  may 
be  and  do  beside.  When  the  father  wants  to 
put  his  son  on  the  way  to  success,  if  he  is  a 
wise  man,  he  most  anxiously  tries  to  find  out 
where  the  lad's  love  lies ;  for  there,  he  knows,  he 
will  have  faith  and  hope,  because  the  love  will  be 
a  perpetual  inspiration  and  motive,  a  perpetual 
life,  to  duty  and  accomplishment :  while,  to  put 
him  at  what  he  can  never  love,  will  only  exhaust 
and  disgust  him,  until  at  last  it  is  given  up  in 
despair.  Not  that  the  boy  and  man  is  not  faith- 
ful and  dutiful,  but  just  because  he  could  not 
make  up  his  mind  to  die  out  by  a  constant  drain 
on  all  the  power  and  vitality  there  was  in  him, 
when  there  is  still  a  hope  that  he  can  do  that 
which  will  be  like  a  well  of  water  springing  up 
into  everlasting  life.  Nay,  so  true  this  is,  that 
if  one  lad  with  love  in  his  heart  fails  to  do 
the  thing  he  loves,  while  another  with  what  he 
thinks  is  love,  but  which  is  only  lust,  of  fame  or 


LOVE.  155 

fortune,  shall  in  a  measure  succeed,  —  the  loving 
heart  shall  still  be  fullest  of  the  life  of  the  en- 
deavor. Hazlitt,  as  a  painter,  had  this  love : 
Haydon  had  lust.  Hazlitt  never  succeeded  in 
painting  a  picture,  after  all  his  endeavors ;  but 
he  did  succeed  in  loving  his  art  so,  that  its  power 
and  life  lifted  his  soul  into  the  finest  insight  and 
appreciation  of  pictures  possessed  by  any  man  in 
his  time  :  while  poor  Haydon,  perpetually  lusting 
for  applause,  and  to  be  the  founder  of  a  great 
school,  and  to  be  honored  and  worshipped,  went 
on  in  an  ever  more  desperate  and  deadly  exhaus- 
tion, down  to  his  death. 

So  I  would  love  to  linger  in  these  regions  of 
the  common  life,  if  there  was  time,  and  open 
more  fully  to  you  this  almost  endless  application 
of  love  as  life.  But  there  is  one  great  applica- 
tion remaining,  —  this  that  Paul  makes,  which  is 
but  another  way  of  saying  this  that  the  Almighty 
makes  ;  for  the  words  of  men  that  speak  as  they 
are  moved  by  the  Spirit  do  not  create  the  thing : 
they  simply  reveal  it. 

And  the  task  is  the  more  easy,  because  these 
things,  I  have  tried  to  make  clear  are  most  inti- 
mately one  with  this  that  remains ;  so  that  you 


156  LOVE. 

do  not  turn  away  from  these  to  come  to  this,  but 
just  work  on,  facing  in  the  one  direction,  getting 
nearer  and  nearer  to  your  study,  to  find  in  the 
very  centre  of  it  this  that  the  apostle  fills  so  full  of 
all  that  is  greatest  and  best.  For,  no  doubt,  when 
the  distinction  is  drawn  in  which  a  man  is  made 
as  eloquent  as  men  and  angels  together,  and 
wise  as  all  the  seers,  and  accomplished  as  all 
the  scholars,  and  benevolent  to  the  last  mite  in 
his  possession,  and  devoted  as  the  martyr  at  the 
stake,  yet  is  deemed  to  be  nothing  if  he  have 
not  love,  it  is  the  line  between  love  and  lust  that 
is  drawn ;  between  doing  a  thing  in  order  to  get 
to  heaven,  and  doing  a  thing  because  we  are 
already  heavenly ;  between  being  religious  for 
what  may  come  of  it,  and  expressing  what  has 
come,  as  naturally  as  a  child  expresses  its  joy  by 
laughter. 

It  is  charged  to  our  faith,  sometimes,  that  it  is 
indifferent  about  a  change  of  heart.  Let  a  man 
do  the  works,  it  is  said  (we  say),  and  then  he  is 
sure  to  be  right.  It  may  be  sometimes  true : 
it  is  as  possible  for  us  to  fall  into  a  cold  mo- 
rality as  any  other  order  of  religious  believers. 
It  is  a  very  great  mistake,  however,  to  suppose 


LOVE.  157 

that,  because  we  are  not  eternally  opening  the 
doors  and  poking  the  fire,  we  are  therefore  in- 
different as  to  whether  it  is  burning.  "We  can 
no  more  believe  that  a  man  can  live  this  life, 
which  is  love,  and  do  its  work  for  God  and  man, 
and  make  a  grand  success  of  it,  by  doing  good  or 
handsome  or  charitable  or  religious  things,  ex- 
pecting that  they  will  somehow  at  last  work  their 
way  into  the  heart,  and  make  all  right, —  than  we 
can  believe  that  a  locomotive  can  be  started  right, 
filled  full  of  power,  and  sent  on  its  way,  rejoicing 
as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race,  by  kindling  a  fire 
about  it  instead  of  in  the  firebox.  It  is  for  ever 
indispensable,  and  for  every  body,  that  they  have 
a  change  of  heart,  if  they  need  one.  If  in  the 
soul  there  is  no  glow  and  expansion,  —  no  such 
feeling  in  the  heart  as  that  which  you  may  under- 
stand easily,  any  time,  you  will  watch  a  mother  in 
the  midst  of  her  little  brood  of  children,  —  then 
there  must  be  such  a  glow  and  expansion,  or  all 
there  is  beside  is  sounding  brass  and  a  tinkling 
cymbal.  "  He  that  loveth  not,  knoweth  not  God." 
It  is  the  old,  sweet,  single  word,  without  the 
affix,  as  when  we  speak  of  the  love  of  the  man 
and  maiden.     "  He  that  loveth  not,  knoweth  not 


158  LOVE. 

God."  The  very  love  of  God  is  only  one  of  the 
loves  in  our  loving.  It  is  not  the  object  but  the 
life  of  which  I  am  to  make  sure ;  and  then,  as 
Richter  says,  "  the  heart  in  this  heaven,  like 
the  wandering  sun,  sees  nothing,  from  a  dew-drop 
to  an  ocean,  but  a  mirror  it  warms  and  fills." 
"  So  loving  was  St.  Francis,"  says  Ruskin, 
"  that  he  claimed  a  brotherhood  with  the  wolf." 
—  "So  loving  was  St.  Francis,"  says  another, 
"  that  he  remembered  those  that  God  had  seem- 
ingly forgotten."  It  is  this  love,  and  this  alone, 
that  "  beareth  all  things,  believeth  all  things, 
hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things,  and  never 
faileth." 

But  do  you  say,  "  Oh  !  tell  me  how  to  get  this 
love  ? "  I  tell  you,  you  have  the  first  white 
spark  of  it.  If  you  really  love  at  all,  if  you  love 
a  dog,  you  have  that  in  your  heart  which  may 
grow  to  be  as  mighty  as  the  love  of  the  first  arch- 
angel. If  I  can  love  that  I  do  love  with  the  love 
which  is  life,  —  with  a  true  heart,  fervently, — 
as  1  open  my  heart  to  this  grace  and  goodness 
of  loving,  the  breath  of  heaven  will  draw  through 
and  fan  the  flame,  kindling  this  way  and  that, 
until  the  whole  soul  is  on  fire  with  a  love  that 


LOVE.  159 

warms  and  energizes  whatever  it  touches,  like 
the  pure  sun.  It  is  a  divine  life,  but  its  kin- 
dling is  in  a  human  love.  Who  has  not  pon- 
dered that  wonderful  history  ?  One  goes  to  a 
wedding.  Only  his  mother  knows  much  about 
him :  it  is  possible  he  knows  but  little  about 
himself.  He  sits  apart  from  the  merry-making : 
there  is  not  much  there  that  he  cares  for ;  but  at 
last  there  is  one  thing,  —  the  bridegroom,  an  old 
friend  probably,  is  about  to  be  ashamed  and 
humiliated  to  the  whole  country-side.  He  saves 
him  from  that  shame  and  humiliation.  I  care 
not  a  pin  about,  whether  it  was  water  or  wine  they 
had ;  but  here,  at  the  opening  of  a  gospel,  is  the 
story  of  one  who,  for  "  auld  lang  syne,"  will  not 
let  his  friend  hang  his  head  ashamed.  It  is  the 
first  spark  to  be  detected  of  the  greatest  fire  that 
ever  burned  in  a  soul.  Once  started  it  caught, — 
here  a  cripple,  there  a  blind  man ;  here  a  widow, 
weeping  by  the  bier  of  her  only  son  ;  there  a 
madman  wandering  among  the  graves:  leaping 
from  one  to  another,  -rowing  white  and  full,  deep 
and  intense,  with  what  it  fed  on,  until  it  burnt 
through  the  very  asbestos  of  the  grave,  and  made 
uncounted  millions  of  hearts  burn  with  the  power 


160  LOVE. 

of  an  endless  life.  It  was  a  love  which  is  life 
that  kindled  the  flame  ;  and  it  was  what  we  may 
all  realize  in  some  good  measure,  if  we  will.  Then 
we  may  be  able  to  say  no  word  to  which  the 
world  will  listen ;  may  have  no  faculty,  possess 
no  knowledge ;  be  as  poor  as  the  widow  with  her 
two  mites,  which  made  one  farthing  ;  and  believe 
that  we  do  not  believe  any  thing.  But,  because 
we  love  with  the  love  which  is  life,  we  shall  have 
the  eloquence  which  surpasses  speech,  and  the 
intuition  that  dives  below  the  faculty  of  the 
seers;  the  knowledge  before  which  the  lamp  of 
knowledge  pales,  as  a  taper  before  the  sun ;  the 
gold  which  is  good,  and  the  devotion  that  is 
better  than  burning,  —  the  devotion  of  loving. 
Heaven  will  then  be  in  the  soul :  we  shall 
not  seek  it :  we  shall  carry  it.  For  as  "  now  we 
see  through  a  glass  darkly,  but  then  face  to 
face ;  and  as  now  we  know  in  part,  but  then  we 
shall  know  as  we  are  known,"  so  "  now  abideth 
faith,  hope,  love,  these  three ;  but  the  greatest  of 
these  is  Love." 


IX. 


ASCENDING  AND  DESCENDING  ANGELS. 

John  i.  51 :  "  The  angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending  upon  the 
Son  of  man." 

That  is,  the  angels  come  from  below  the  Son  of 
man,  as  well  as  from  above  him  ;  yet  they  are  the 
angels  of  God,  from  whatever  quarter  they  come. 
And  as  in  space  the  heavens  are  all  about  us,  — 
not  above  only,  but  below  ;  so  in  the  soul  the 
heavens  enfold  the  son  of  man  every  way,  and 
below  him,  as  above  him,  open  to  his  angels. 

The  term  "  son  of  man,"  in  the  broad  sense, 
has  no  mystical  meaning.  It  reaches  clean 
through  the  scale  of  life,  from  the  son  of  man  a 
reptile  in  the  Book  of  Job,  and  the  son  of  man  as 
grass  in  the  Book  of  Isaiah,  to  the  Son  of  man 
Lord  of  the  sabbath,  the  Son  of  man,  with  power 
on  earth  to  forgive  sins,  and  the  Son  of  man  glo- 
rified of  the  Gospels.  So  it  is  at  once  the  general 
title  for  any  child  of  humanity,  and  the  one  name 
Jesus  Christ  always  claims  for   himself.     "  The 

[1611 


162        ASCENDING   AND   DESCENDING   ANGELS. 

Son  of  man,"  therefore,  is  not  only  the  loftiest, 
but  the  lowest  man.  From  the  reptile  to  the 
Redeemer,  it  embraces  every  one. 

But,  broad  as  this  term  is,  it  is  not  broader 
than  this  of  the  angels  that  come  from  the  open 
heavens  everywhere  into  his  life  ;  meaning,  in  the 
simplest  sense,  that  which  is  actively  at  work ; 
and,  in  the  sacred  sense,  that  which  is  doing 
God's  will.  For  there  is  no  trace  anywhere  of  an 
indolent  angel.  You  follow  the  term  carefully  as 
it  is  used  by  these  Bible  men,  and  find  that  it 
is  by  no  means  confined  to  what  we  understand 
by  "  angels "  commonly ;  but  they  seem  to  be- 
lieve, with  one  of  their  own  rabbins,  that  "  all 
divine  operations,  whether  natural  or  spiritual, 
are  done  by  angels.  Jacob's  ladder  is  every- 
where stretching  from  earth  to  heaven,  and  every 
grass-blade  has  its  own  angel  to  attend  it." 

And  so  you  will  find,  that,  excepting  the  angel 
is  never  feminine,  there  is  almost  infinite  diver- 
sity of  angelhood.  They  are  gods,  and  sons  of 
God,  and  men ;  the  spirit  of  the  thunder  and 
wind  and  fire  ;  the  spirit  of  nations,  kings,  states- 
men, and  pastors.  Time  would  fail  me  to  tell  of 
their  almost  endless  diversity,  —  from  the  angel 


ASCENDING    AND    DESCENDING   ANGELS.        163 

standing  at  the  gate  of  Eden,  whose  sword  flamed 
every  way  before  the  paradise  lost,  to  the  angel 
with  the  golden  reed,  who  measures  the  city  in 
the  paradise  regained.  The  Bible  conception  of 
the  angel  touches,  on  one  side,  the  spirits  that 
stand  nearest  the  immanent  glory ;  and,  on  the 
other,  that  mystery  of  life  in  which  — 

"  Even-  clod  feels  a  stir  of  might, 
An  instinct  within  it  that  reaches  and  towers, 
And,  feeling  blindly  toward  the  light, 
Climbs  to  a  soul  in  grass  and  flowers." 

And  I  have  made  this  brief  study  of  the  Bible 
senses  of  the  "  son  of  man  "  and  the  "  angels," 
because  I  suppose  you  have  hardly  imagined  what 
a  breadth  and  scope  these  terms  take ;  and  also 
because,  in  this  inclusiveness,  we  can  find  appli- 
cations of  my  text  it  is  hopeless  to  seek  in  the 
common  conception  of  what  it  means.  Read  it 
in  the  light  of  the  commentaries  usually  written 
about  angels,  and  you  say  at  once,  "  Here  is  some- 
thing that  relates  entirely  to  the  Messiah.  It  is 
a  part  of  that  whole  system  of  things  that  makes 
him  rather  the  exception  than  the  instance  of 
humanity.  These  angels  were  to  minister,  and 
did  minister,  to  him,  because  he  was  Messiah,  not 
because  he  was  man ;  and  so  we  have  no  part  or 


164        ASCENDING   AND   DESCENDING   ANGELS. 

lot  in  the  matter,  except  to  study  the  curious 
records  of  their  nature  and  agency,  contained  in 
the  far-away  hints  of  Gospel  and  Epistle.  We 
live  now  in  a  prosy  railroad  world,  in  which  the 
telegraph  can  outstrip  in  swiftness  the  swiftest 
flying  angel  of  the  old  ages ;  and  angels,  for 
many  a  century  now,  have  fled  from  the  earth." 
This  is  all  easily  said,  and  men  are  saying  it 
on  all  sides  of  us.  But  it  is  not  true  that  the 
angels  never  come :  the  trouble  is,  we  do  not 
look  for  them  where  they  are.  We  look  for 
them  to  sweep  down  through  the  opening  heav- 
ens when  they  have  come  down  already,  and  are 
hidden  in  the  bluebells  at  our  feet.  We  want 
them  to  appear  like  the  great  angels  of  Angelo : 
they  are  looking  at  us  out  of  the  dreamy  wander- 
ing eyes  of  the  babe  born  yesterday.  We  read  of 
the  angel  that  came  and  fought  for  Israel  in  the 
old  days.  He  came  and  fought  for  us  in  these 
new  days,  not  on  wings,  but  on  strong  tramping 
feet ;  black,  but  comely ;  standing  side  by  side 
with  our  brothers  and  sons.  He  strikes  the  rock 
in  the  wilderness  now  with  a  drill,  and  bores 
Artesian  wells,  and  ministers  to  hunger  and 
agony  through  a  woman's  hands  and  heart,  and  a 


ASCENDING   AND   DESCENDING    ANGELS.        165 

surgeon's  skill,  and  all  common  human  agencies. 
Are  they  not  all  ministering  spirits  sent  out  to 
minister?     But  — 

"  I  think  we  do  as  little  children  do, 
Who  lean  their  faces  on  the  window  pane, 
To  sigh  the  glass  dim  with  their  own  breath-stain, 
And  shut  the  sky  and  landscape  from  their  view." 

This  indicates,  then,  the  direction  of  my 
thought.  It  is  not  to  teach  you  some  strange 
doctrine,  but  to  insist  that  you  stand  true  to  an  old 
doctrine.  I  want  not  to  bar  out  of  any  life  the 
loftiest  ministry  of  angelhood,  but  to  insist  also 
on  your  recognition  of  the  lowest ;  and  that  these 
come  to  us  also.  Do  you  say  that  Moses  and 
Elias  came  and  talked  with  Jesus  ?  Admitted. 
But  the  children  he  took  in  his  arms  were  angels 
too,  whose  ministry  was  as  indispensable  to  his 
tried  and  lonely  life  as  that  of  the  ascended 
prophets.  And  Martha  troubled  about  his  din- 
ner, and  Mary  washing  his  feet  with  her  tears, — 
these  were  angels  as  truly  as  those  that  found 
him  wandering  in  the  wilderness,  and  fainting  in 
the  garden. 

Small  matters,  you  say,  to  that  high  soul,  —  a 
batch  of  children,  a  woman  in  a  tiff,  and  a  wo- 
man in  tears ;  surely  you  are  lowering  the  stand- 


166   ASCENDING  AND  DESCENDING  ANGELS. 

arc!  under  which  the  angels  muster,  when  jou 
make  these  angels.  "We  can  think  how  these 
others  might  sweep  down  through  the  blue  to 
his  side,  to  minister  unto  him.  But  women 
and  children,  so  far  below  him,  —  how  can  they 
be  angels  ?  These  ascended,  as  those  descended 
upon  the  Son  of  man.  Indeed,  it  is  wonderful 
to  notice  what  a  great  part  these  angels  that 
ascend  play  in  the  development  of  the  life  and 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  ;  or  it  would  be  won- 
derful, if  we  did  not  see  all  about  us  now,  how 
clear  it  is,  that,  when  a  life  has  trued  itself 
to  divine  standards  fairly,  then  whatever  conies 
to  it  is  somehow  transmuted  into  fine  gold  for 
its  service.  To  me,  the  shadow  in  the  life  of 
Jesus  is  only  less  inestimable  than  the  light ;  the 
most  adverse  things  seem  to  be  as  indispensable 
as  the  most  felicitous.  His  homelessness,  his 
loneliness,  his  hindrances,  his  sufferings,  —  all 
come  trooping  from  below,  hard,  black,  forbid- 
ding in  the  distance  ;  but,  when  they  light  on 
him,  they  are  angels.  We  love  him  more  because 
he  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head,  than  if  he  had 
been  lodged  in  the  palace  of  the  Herods.  "We 
could  never  have  had  some  of  the  most  priceless 


ASCENDING   AND   DESCENDING   ANGELS.        167 

things  in  the  Gospels,  but  for  the  fieree  bigotry 
of  Scribe  and  Pharisee,  vexing  his  righteous 
soul.  The  very  Prodigal  is  made  a  minister  to 
the  most  pregnant  illustration  in  the  Gospels 
of  God's  great  mercy ;  while  the  lost  woman 
stands  for  the  most  touching  instance  of  his 
own  great  humanity.  Nay,  the  heartless  priest 
and  Levite  cannot  escape,  the  mighty  trans- 
mutation ;  and  the  darkest,  saddest,  most  de- 
plorable event  in  time,  —  his  agony  and  cruel 
death, —  is  the  most  significant,  the  very  cen- 
tral circumstance,  in  the  history  of  man.  Now, 
these  things,  and  all  things  like  them,  as  they 
come  up  about  the  Son  of  man,  are  compelled 
into  a  divine  service.  Whatever  the  thing  may 
be,  it  is  no  matter :  when  once  it  touches  him, 
it  becomes  an  angel.  From  the  lowest  to  the 
highest,  from  above  and  from  below,  their  na- 
ture always  waits  to  be  revealed  in  the  nature 
of  the  man  to  whom  they  come. 

Right  here,  however,  the  question  meets  us, 
What  son  of  man  now  has  any  right  to  expect 
such  a  ministry  of  angels  in  his  life,  as  this  that 
was  identified  with  the  life  of  the  Saviour  ?  We 
cannot  hope  for  it,  because  we  can  bear  no  such 


168        ASCENDING   AND   DESCENDING   ANGELS. 

responsibility  on  the  one  hand,  and  can  claim  no 
such  worthiness  on  the  other.  There  is  but  one 
answer  to  this  objection.  It  is,  that  not  what  we 
may  be  worth  to  ourselves  or  the  world,  but 
what  we  are  worth  to  God,  being  the  prime 
reason  why  the  angels  come  at  all,  we  cannot  be 
sure  that  there  is  no  such  ministry  except  we 
were  sure  there  is  no  such  worth.  It  would 
seem  clear  enough,  that  the  wretched  man 
who  gets  drunk,  beats  his  wife  and  starves  his 
children,  would  have  no  hope  of  an  angel ;  but 
he  has  perhaps  a  houseful  pleading  with  him 
and  ministering  to  him  every  day,  because,  bad 
as  he  is,  he  is  not  the  son  of  perdition,  but  a  son 
of  man.  When  your  son  has  grown  to  be  a  man, 
and  you  can  order  his  steps  no  longer,  it  may 
then  be  his  destiny  to  go  to  some  place  a  mile 
south  of  his  home ;  but,  in  his  wild  wilfulness, 
he  turns  his  face  north,  and  then  it  is  seven  and 
twenty  thousand  miles  of  weary  travelling  to  get 
there.  Will  the  angel  of  your  love  ever  leave 
him  ;  or  will  his  weariness  and  pain  and  sorrow 
be  only  a  curse  to  him  ?  It  is  a  horrible  thing  to 
teach  that  the  Almighty  made  even  the  fiends 
only  to  torment  us,  to  lead  us  wrong  and  lure  us 


ASCENDING   AND   DESCENDING    ANGELS.        109 

down ;  and  then,  at  last,  to  listen  while  they 
send  up  yells  of  fierce  laughter  over  our  hapless 
misery.  What  I  do  I  must  stand  by ;  no  doubt 
of  that,  if  I  will  not  take  refuge  in  the  infinite 
pity  and  pardon.  The  wages  of  sin  is  death, — 
death  when  the  sin  is  done,  death  right  along ; 
the  deadening  and  darkening  of  all  I  might 
have  been,  had  I  done  right  right  on.  But, 
when  the  angels  above  me  are  powerless ;  when 
my  mother's  love,  and  my  father's  faith,  and 
wife  and  children  and  friends,  all  fail  ;  when 
all  the  great  influences  from  heaven  fail,  and 
I  will  rush  on  and  down,  —  then  the  angels 
come  from  below,  in  terrible  shapes  perhaps, 
and  armed  with  dire  torments :  but  they  come 
to  save  me,  and  mean  to  save  me. 

Still  the  other  is  the  nobler  application. 
When  a  man  is  on  the  right  way,  his  heart 
open  to  heaven,  his  life  a  prayer  to  be  right;  is 
longing  right,  striving  right,  and  fighting,  like  Bun- 
van's  Christian,  up  and  down;  and  who,  though 
he  may  plunge  into  fits  of  despond,  and  wander 
in  shadows  of  death,  and  get  locked  up  in  dun- 
geons of  despair,  will  never,  if  he  know  it,  turn 
his  back  on  the  one  right  way,  —  on  this  son  of 


170        ASCENDING   AND    DESCENDING   ANGELS. 

man  the  angels  descend  in  constant  grace ;  and 
even  the  things  that  come  from  below  and  appal 
him,  when  once  the  knight  has  well  fought  his 
battle,  are  turned  into  forms  of  beauty,  the 
daughters  of  the  king. 

And  be  sure  I  do  not  mean  by  all  this,  merely 
that  elemental  properties,  and  providential  occur- 
rences, and  men  good  and  bad,  and  nature  in  her 
glory  and  grandeur  and  terror,  are  the  only 
angels  that  attend  such  a  life,  coming  from  below 
and  above  to  be  its  ministers.  I  do  mean  all 
these.  I  can  see  how  tribulation,  and  persecu- 
tion, and  famine,  and  nakedness,  and  peril,  and 
sword,  and  life,  and  death,  and  principalities, 
and  powers,  and  things  present,  and  things  to 
come,  may  all  be  ministering  angels ;  but  I  can- 
not strip  life  of  loftier  influences  than  these,  that 
are  yet  lower  than  the  incoming  of  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

I  have  a  friend,  for  instance,  who  is  so  sure 
that  the  child  gone  out  of  her  arms  comes  back 
to  her  as  a  ministering  angel,  that  the  belief  wins 
her  out  of  her  mourning,  and  fills  her,  I  know, 
with  a  perfect  peace.  Now,  who  am  I  that  I 
shall  say,  "  My  friend,  you  arc  mistaken"  ?     I 


ASCENDING   AND   DESCENDING    ANGELS.        171 

watch  the  eyes  of  this  son  of  man,  and  see  them 
fill  with  the  light  of  heaven,  as  he  recognizes  the 
presence  of  spiritual  things  I  can  only  see  dis- 
tantly and  dimly  or  not  at  all.  Who  am  I  that 
I  should  say, "  What  you  see  as  a  person,  I  see 
as  a  principle ;  and  I  am  right,  and  you  are 
wrong  "  ?  I  know,  as  well  as  Newton  did,  that 
two  and  two  make  four  ;  that  is  a  principle,  it  is 
plain  to  both  of  us.  But  I  stumble  and  stand 
stricken  at  the  portals  of  a  world  in  the  line  of 
that  principle,  that  opens  to  him  into  an  infinite 
beauty  and  goodness.  Yet,  because  I  cannot  see 
what  he  can  see,  shall  I  say,  "  You  are  the  vic- 
tim of  geometrical  imaginations ;  there  is  noth- 
ing beyond  simple  addition  ? "  As  I  show  most 
wisdom  when  I  sit  at  the  feet  of  the  master 
in  geometry,  and  accept  his  revelation,  inasmuch 
as  it  is  deeper  and  better  than  my  own ;  so  I 
show  most  wisdom  when  I  sit  at  the  feet  of 
this  Master,  who  has  most  insight  into  spiritual 
things,  listening  reverently  to  what  he  can  tell 
me;  whose  powers  so  far  surpass  my  own. 

So,  in  this  loftiest  sense,  I  cannot  strip  the 
world  of  angels,  and  send  them  back  into  dim 
and  distant  agres. 


172        ASCENDING   AND   DESCENDING   ANGELS. 

"  I  think  the  sudden  joyance,  that  illumes 
A  child's  mouth  sleeping,  unaware  may  run 
From  some  soul  newly  loosened  from  earth's  tombs; 
I  think  the  passionate  sigh,  which,  half  begun, 
I  stifle  back,  may  reach  and  stir  the  plumes 
Of  some  tall  angel  standing  in  the  sun." 

But  this  insisted  on,  —  that  wonderful  spiritual 
powers,  of  the  loftiest  order,  are  all  about  my  life, 
only  hidden  because  that  is  best.  There  waits 
that  vaster  order  of  ministers  which  includes 
whatever  beside  can  be  an  angel.  And,  in  nam- 
ing these  finally,  I  cannot  do  better  than  follow 
the  track  of  illustration  I  have  already  made,  and 
say,  that  to  us,  as  to  our  great  forerunner,  what- 
ever influences  in  the  world  and  in  life  touch  us 
to  the  quick,  whether  they  come  from  below  or 
from  above,  if  we  are  in  the  line  of  divine  laws 
and  leadings,  are  all  ascending  or  descending 
angels. 

The  little  child  comes,  with  its  crumb  of  ut- 
terly helpless  humanity.  And,  if  it  were  possible 
to  be  purely  impersonal  spectators,  I  suppose 
there  would  be  no  greater  wonder  on  the  earth 
than  the  almost  infinite  patience  of  the  mother 
with  its  habits,  ailments,  and,  if  it  were  not  just 
what  it  is,  its  endless  annoyances.  Yet  in  that 
one  small  thing  is  hidden  both  angels.     It  is  not 


ASCENDING   AND   DESCENDING   ANGELS.        173 

the  smile  she  gets ;  not  the  wealth  of  beauty  she 
sees,  thank  God,  whether  the  world  can  see  it  or 
no;  not  the  freshness  of  its  opening  life,  —  not 
these  only,  these  angels  from  above  ;  but  its  very 
waywardness  and  greediness,  its  fractiousness 
and  sleeplessness,  develop  in  her  nature  deep 
springs  of  love,  that  could  never  come  out  of  its 
absolute  perfection.  From  below  as  well  as  from 
above,  the  angel  comes  to  all  true  mothers  from 
all  children ;  and  no  mother  can  afford  to  lose 
one  of  these  ministries. 

And  as  the  life  grows  in  us,  the  angels  still 
come  from  either  hand.  Our  home  is  holy  ;  good 
angels  are  always  lighting  on  it  out  of  heaven : 
but  we  leave  it,  as  Jacob  did,  before  we  find  out 
all  about  its  angelhood.  When  the  lad  gets  into 
the  wilderness,  with  a  stone  for  his  pillow,  then 
only  he  is  for  the  first  time  aware  of  both  the 
angels.  And,  in  the  full  tide  of  the  life  of  a  son 
of  man,  sturdily  bent  on  fighting  the  good  fight 
clean  through,  the  angels  are  everywhere.  Let 
the  young  man  keep  himself  pure,  be  the  man 
he  ought  to  be  and  can  be,  and  then  the  woful 
painted  shams  on  our  streets,  instead  of  being  a 
danger  and  a  snare,  will  even  come  to  be  a  means 


174   ASCENDING  AND  DESCENDING  ANGELS. 

of  grace ;  for  they  will  fill  him  with  a  great,  sor- 
rowful, manly  pity,  that  ever  one,  who  was  some 
mother's  child  and  is  some  man's  sister,  should 
lose  so  dismally  her  glory  and  her  crown.  Nay, 
he  will  be  more  human  at  the  thought  of  the  in- 
humanity that  has  made  her  what  she  is  ;  and, 
instead  of  sneering  at  all  women  because  she  is 
so  fallen,  —  as  if  a  fool  should  sneer  at  the  con- 
stellations because  of  the  falling  stars,  —  when 
God  shall  wake  him  out  of  his  sleep,  and  say, 
"  Behold  the  woman  that  I  have  made  for  thee ! " 
he  will  reverence  her  with  a  more  sacred  rever- 
ence, and  love  her  with  a  holier  love. 

Indeed,  I  know  of  no  way  in  which  a  man  or 
woman,  determined  toward  whatsoever  things  are 
true,  will  not  find  the  angels  climbing  up  as  well 
as  coming  down  to  him.  What,  I  pray  you,  had 
Luther  been,  had  all  Christendom  come  over  to 
his  side  the  moment  he  launched  his  thesis ;  or 
Cromwell,  had  there  been  no  Naseby  or  Marston 
Moor  ?  What  had  Wesley  been  as  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  or  Washington  as  the  bosom-friend 
of  George  the  Third  ?  What  had  Howard  been 
but  for  the  prisons  that  were  a  disgrace  to  the 
worst  ages,  or  Lady  Russell  but  for  the  martyr- 


ASCENDING    AND   DESCENDING    ANGELS.        175 

dom  of  her  husband,  or  Florence  Nightingale  but 
for  the  Circumlocution  Office?  Not  that  these 
things  are  there,  that  the  man  or  woman  may 
reai)  renown  ;  but  being  there,  and  they  right  in 
their  track  and  true  to  the  duty  they  present, 
they  find,  in  some  way,  that  what  was  in  the 
doing  the  hardest  and  saddest  thing  in  their  life 
was  still  so  transmuted  in  the  process  as  to  be- 
come an  angel.  So  a  shaking  bog  in  Lancashire 
ministered  to  Stephenson,  and  the  water  flowed 
for  Fulton,  and  the  lightning  flashed  for  Frank- 
lin, and  the  steam  hissed  for  Watt,  and  the  elec- 
tric fluid  pulsed  for  Morse.  So  mere  pigments 
and  chemicals  come  up  and  meet  in  Hunt  and 
Church,  the  angels  of  inspiration  that  come 
down  ;  then,  from  the  sons  of  God  and  the 
daughters  of  men,  again  other  angels  are  born, 
that  stand  on  the  canvas,  a  glory  and  a  praise. 

It  will  be  very  pleasant  and  good  that  every 
man  in  this  church  succeed  in  his  calling.  It  is 
indispensable  that  the  very  hardnesses  and  hin- 
drances that  rise  up  to  appal  him  shall,  by  his 
right  determination,  turn  to  ministering  angels. 
And  I  can  hardly  trust  myself  to  say  what  angels 
couch  in  the  saddest  places  of  our  life,  —  in  the 


176        ASCENDING   AND   DESCENDING   ANGELS. 

sick-room,  by  the  deathbed,  in  the  shadows  of  a 
sore  disappointment,  in  the  hope  deferred  that 
maketh  the  heart  sick,  in  the  very  dungeons  of 
despair.  We  shrink  and  shudder,  and  say,  "  I 
shall  go  down  to  my  grave  mourning."  But 
some  morning,  all  at  once,  we  bethink  us  of  the 
little  key  called  promise;  and  it  opens  the  dun- 
geon door,  and  we  creep  out,  blinking  sadly  into 
the  sun.  But  there  is  the  sun,  sure  enough,  and 
we  had  thought  he  would  never  shine  again ;  and 
here  are  the  green  pastures,  and  there  the  shin- 
ing river.  And  men  and  women  look  at  us  with 
a  new  tenderness,  because  our  lot  has  been  so 
sad.  Then  the  song  sings  itself  somehow  again  ;. 
and,  while  we  would  shrink  and  shudder  just  as 
much  next  time,  we  cannot  but  discover  how,  in 
our  very  griefs,  there  were  hidden  angels  reach- 
ing up  to  hide,  within  the  dark  experience,  some 
treasure  of  patience  or  trust  we  could  never  have 
possessed,  had  the  angels  only  descended  on  us, 
and  our  life  been  one  long  joy. 

And  I  know,  when  I  say  all  this,  that  I  speak 
to  common  experience  through  the  whole  range 
of  this  angelhood.  I  think  we  do  not  begin  to 
realize  as  we  ought  what  ministries  cluster  round 


ASCENDING   AND   DESCENDING   ANGELS.        177 

our  life,  to  aid  us  in  being  what  we  may  be, — 
angels,  angels,  every  one,  thick  about  us  every 
day,  bearing  us  in  their  hands,  and  lifting  us 
up  when  we  are  fallen.  Their  faces  gladden 
us  when  we  do  well,  and  grow  very  sad  at  us  when 
we  sin.  Ay,  and  in  some  way  those  that  we 
speak  of  and  think  of  as  in  heaven  love  us  still 
with  all  the  old  love  of  earth,  and  all  the  new 
love  of  heaven  together.  So,  because  they  love 
us  still,  we  are  still  one,  our  souls  are  in  theirs, 
and  they  in  ours.  We  touch  hands  in  the  spirit, 
and  the  light  that  is  not  the  light  of  the  sun 
covers  and  enfolds  us  all. 


X. 

THE    FEAR    OF    GOD. 

1  Peter  ii.  17  :  "  Fear  God." 

I  want  to  say,  as  an  introduction  to  this  ser- 
mon, that  no  writer  or  speaker  in  the  Bible  begins 
his  revelation  by  trying,  first  of  all,  to  prove  that 
there  is  a  God.  In  no  part  of  the  Bible  is  such 
proof  ever  attempted.  These  men  appear  to 
believe  that  the  question  is  settled  in  some  other 
way  than  by  reasoning  ;  or  they  feel  that  trying 
to  prove  the  being  of  God  is  a  lower  thing  than 
that  which  they  are  sent  to  do  ;  or  they  are  so 
filled  with  a  great  sense  of  his  presence,  that 
they  do  not  believe  it  possible  for  a  sensible  man 
to  doubt  about  his  being,  any  more  than  to  doubt 
about  the  sunlight  on  a  summer's  day,  —  living 
in  a  focus  of  belief,  like  that  man  who,  brought 
before  the  Parliament  of  Toulouse  on  the  charge 
of  atheism,  lifted  a  straw  from  the  ground,  and, 
holding  it  up  before  his  accusers,  said,  "  This 
U781 


THE   FEAR   OF   GOD.  179 

straw  compels  me  to  believe  that  there  is  a 
God."  But,  while  these  men  all  believe  that 
there  is  a  God,  they  disagree  very  widely  about 
his  nature  and  character,  and  how  he  is  related 
to  man.  To  one  he  is  a  terror  and  perplexity, 
to  another  a  supreme  love ;  to  one  a  power 
beyond  all  power,  to  another  a  limited,  strug- 
gling principle ;  to  one  a  grim  Eastern  despot, 
to  another  a  forgiving  Father,  —  his  face  beaming 
with  love  to  this  man,  but  to  that  man  black 
with  vindictive  vengeance.  A  great  deal  of  the 
trouble  that  men  come  to  in  trying  to  reconcile 
these  things  as  they  are  found  in  the  Bible,  lies 
in  their  utter  antagonism,  and  they  can  never 
be  reconciled  for  that  reason:  therefore  we  can 
only  take  them  as  we  find  them,  and  test  them 
by  the  truth  itself.  I  intend  to  do  this,  as  far  as 
I  am  able,  in  the  discussion  of  that  character 
of  God  by  which  we  are  bidden  to  fear  him.  I 
think  there  are  some  thoughts  of  the  fear  of  God 
that  we  may  well  ponder.  I  propose  to  name 
some  hurtful  and  some  useful  fears  of  God  com- 
mon among  men  to-day,  and  to  point  out  their 
value  in  the  human  life. 

I.  There  is,  first  of  all,  a  fear  of  God  which 


180  THE    FEAK   OF   GOD. 

to  me  appears  to  be  a  reproduction,  measure,  or 
color  of  the  national  life,  different  as  the  nations 
differ.  I  believe  it  is  impossible  to  bring  a 
Frenchman  and  a  German,  or  a  Scotchman  and 
an  Irishman,  or  any  two  men  that  reach  back 
into  a  radical  difference  of  race,  to  regard  God  in 
the  same  way.  Indeed  we  see  this  difference  in 
two  children  of  the  same  family.  One  child  will 
rebel  and  take  the  penalty,  snap  his  fingers  and 
do  it  again ;  while  another  will  tremble  and 
shrink  and  fear.  One  will  say  prayers,  and  brood 
over  those  mysterious  promptings  of  the  soul 
that  seem  like  the  audible  whispers  of  angels  to 
some  children ;  while  another  will  appear  to  be 
shut  altogether  out  of  this  heaven,  revelling  in 
the  fresh  new  life  of  the  present  with  a  wealth 
of  enjoyment  past  all  telling,  — "  of  the  earth, 
earthy."  So  there  are  nations  that  are  light- 
some, careless,  earthy,  objective ;  and  nations 
that  are  deep,  stern,  solemn,  subjective  ;  and  the 
national  nature  colors  the  great  central  idea  of 
God. 

Where  the  father  in  the  home  is  a  fear,  the 
God  above  is  a  fear.  Where  the  father  is  care- 
less,  light-hearted,   easily   bought   off,   blending 


THE   FEAR   OF   GOD.  181 

laughter  and  tears,  smiles  and  frowns,  a  kiss  and 
a  blow,  there  the  Holy  Mother  can  turn  the  tides 
of  fate,  and  the  Friar  make  a  good  thing  out  of 
what,  to  a  deeper-hearted  people,  is  the  dreadful, 
steady,  immaculate  justice.  The  Frenchman  who 
could  not  stay  to  morning  mass,  but  left  his  card 
upon  the  altar,  flashed  a  light  across  the  world 
that  revealed  the  real  texture  of  the  French  soul 
as  vividly  as  you  shall  see  it,  if  you  watch  for  a 
year  in  the  church  of  the  Madeline,  in  Paris. 
And  when  the  Scotchman  went  away  from  the 
kirk,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  to  hear  an 
Episcopal  service,  in  which  a  fine  organ  played  a 
prominent  part,  and  said,  as  he  came  away,  "  Oh ! 
it's  verra  bonnie  ;  but  it's  an  awfu'  way  of  spend- 
ing the  Sabbath, "  he  touched  the  deep,  stern 
Scottish  character  —  that,  as  some  one  has  said, 
"  delights  to  praise  the  Lord  by  singing  infinitely 
out  of  tune  "  —  better  than  it  could  be  touched  in 
a  volume  of  disquisition. 

So,  friends,  in  a  broad,  national  way,  we  take 
the  thing  that  is  nearest  us  to  touch  the  infinite. 

The  glass  through  which  we  see  God  is  dark- 
ened by  our  own  breath.  Some  shadow  of  the 
dark  or  bright  we  cast  of  our  own  free  will.    But 


182  THE   FEAR   OF   GOD. 

more  than  all  that  is  this  primitive,  mysterious 
shadow  of  the  race,  —  the  shadow  cast  by  blood 
and  climate  and  circumstance,  determining  for 
all  men — save,  it  may  be,  one  in  a  thousand  — 
whether  their  Supreme  shall  be  revealed  in  the 
thunders  of  Sinai,  or  the  sorrows  of  Olivet,  or  the 
glories  of  Zion, —  a  power  that  waits  on  our  birth 
to  take  us  up  and  mould  us,  and  which  smiles  to 
hear  us  say,  "  What  I  will  be  I  will."  For  as 
you  may  find  the  Soldanella  Alpina,  piercing 
through  the  snows  upon  the  lower  Alps,  leaning 
its  frail  purple  blossom  over  the  fearful  icy  clefts, 
and  the  Victoria  Regia  in  the  hot  lagoons  of  the 
South,  opening  her  vast,  shining  petals  to  glisten 
in  the  sun,  but  never  the  great  lily  on  the  moun- 
tain, or  the  blue  bell  in  the  lake  ;  so  the  idea  of 
God  is  moulded,  more  or  less,  by  the  great 
ranges  of  the  race,  the  intimate  life-blood  of  the 
country  and  the  providence. 

"  The  Ethiop'a  god  has  Ethiop's  lips, 
Black  cheek  and  woolly  hair, 
And  the  Grecian  god  a  Grecian  face, 
As  keen-eyed,  cold,  and  fair." 

II.  But,  in  our  own  nation,  where  so  many 
nativities  centre,  the  idea  of  God  and  the  conse- 
quent  fear  of  God  differ  very  greatly.     And  I 


THE   FEAR   OF   GOD.  183 

have  thought  that  it  might  be  of  use  to  you,  that 
I  should  note  some  forms  of  that  fear  as  it  exists 
all  about  us,  and  tell  you  what  I  think  is  a  false 
and  degrading,  then  what  is  a  true  and  elevating, 
fear  of  God,  for  us  here,  and  to-day. 

The  first  and  lowest  form  is  a  fear  of  God  as 
a  jailer  and  executioner,  who  stands  and  waits 
until  that  sure  detective,  Death,  shall  hunt 
the  criminal  down,  and  bring  him  into  court 
(where,  by  the  way,  there  is  no  jury, —  a  thing 
that  certainly  would  not  be  omitted  if  these  West- 
ern nations  had  written  the  Bible),  and  where, 
really  without  trial,  —  for  his  condemnation  is  a 
foregone  conclusion,  —  he  is  turned  into  the  de- 
spair and  torment  of  the  lost.  This  is  the  low, 
coarse,  hell-fire  fear, — the  fear  described  in  a 
quotation  that  every  preacher  of  this  school  can 
repeat  to  you  as  readily  as  he  can  repeat  the 
beatitudes,  and  that  is  sure  to  find  a  place  in 
the  revival  season,  which  indeed  would  be  in- 
complete without  it.  The  writer  is  describing  a 
death-bed,  and  tells  you, — 

"  In  that  dread  moment,  how  the  frantic  soul 
Raves  round  the  walls  of  her  clay  tenement; 
Runs  to  each  avenue,  and  shrieks  for  help, 
But  shrieks  in  vain !    How  wishfully  she  looks 


184  THE   FEAR   OF   GOD. 

On  all  she's  leaving,  now  no  longer  hers! 

A  little  longer,  yet  a  little  longer, 

Oh  might  she  stay  to  wash  away  her  stains, 

And  fit  her  for  her  passage ! 

Her  very  eyes  weep  blood,  and  every  groan 

She  heaves  is  big  with  horror;  but  the  foe, 

Like  a  stanch  murderer  steady  to  his  purpose, 

Pursues  her  close  through  every  lane  of  life, 

Nor  misses  once  the  track,  but  presses  on ; 

Till,  forced  at  last  to  the  tremendous  verge, 

At  once  she  sinks  to  everlasting  ruin." 

Now,  if  you  can  bring  a  man  to  believe  this, 
and  to  believe  that  God  is  to  this  dreadful 
penalty  what  the  soul  is  to  the  body,  what  the 
burning  is  to  the  fire,  the  very  life  of  the  eternal 
torture,  replying  "  Never,  never,  never  "  to  every 
cry  out  of  the  pit  of  "  Oh,  when  will  this  agony  be 
over  ?  "  —  then  you  have  a  fear  of  God  in  that  man 
beside  which  the  fear  of  a  slave  toward  a  cruel 
driver  is  a  pleasant,  frisky  thing  ;  and  such  a  fear, 
when  it  strikes  root  in  a  man,  can  have  but  one 
of  two  results :  it  places  him  in  a  bitter,  hope- 
less, blasphemous  atheism,  such  as  you  often  find 
in  isolated  communities  that  have  heard  only 
these  dreadful  teachers ;  or  it  forces  him  into 
a  slavish,  crouching,  abject  submission,  where 
every  free  and  noble  aspiration  is  lost  in  the  one 
great  hunger  to  be  on  good  terms  with  such  a 
dreadful  master.      The  Pagan,  on  this  plane  of 


THE   FEAR    OF   GOD.  185 

belief,  is  wiser  than  the  Christian.  He  says 
boldly,  that  the  doer  of  this  is  the  evil  spirit,  and 
so  he  tries  to  be  on  good  terms  with  him.  But 
wherever  such  a  fear  has  a  real  place  in  the  soul 
of  man  or  woman,  African,  Indian,  or  Saxon,  in 
that  soul  the  love  of  God,  or  even  a  true  fear  of 
God,  is  utterly  out  of  the  question.  It  destroys 
every  fair  blossom  of  the  soul ;  it  leaves  nothing 
to  ripen, — nothing  beautiful,  even  to  live. 

III.  Then,  to  the  eye  of  the  resolute  Christian 
thinker,  —  who  dares  not,  as  Coleridge  has  said, 
"  love  even  Christianity  better  than  the  truth, 
lest  he  shall  come  to  love  his  own  sect  better 
than  Christianity,  and  at  last  himself  better  than 
all,"  — there  is  another  form  of  the  fear  of  God, 
not  the  best  by  far,  but  far  better  than  this 
utterly  slavish  fear.  I  mean  that  in  which  God 
becomes  the  embodiment  of  pure  bargain,  exact- 
ing from  us,  to  the  uttermost  penny  or  the  ut- 
termost quivering  nerve,  whatever  is  due, — 
no  more,  no  less.  Here  God  appears  with  the 
guards  and  sanctities  of  the  law  about  him,  self- 
imposed  and  self-respected.  The  man  need  not 
contract  the  debt  if  it  docs  not  please  him  ;  but, 
if  he  does  contract  it,  he  must  pay,  or  another 


186  THE  FEAR   OF  GOD. 

must  pay  for  him.  Then  the  son  of  the  great 
creditor  gives  his  own  body  to  the  knife,  and 
bears  the  intolerable  agony  instead  of  the  debtor. 
Now  there  is  a  touch  of  sublimity  in  this  con- 
ception. I  do  not  wonder  that  Paul,  standing 
where  he  did,  should  be  so  filled  with  enthusiasm 
by  it,  and  should  run  all  over  the  world  to  tell  it, 
with  strong  crying  and  tears.  To  Paul,  educated 
in  the  belief  that  a  sacrifice  was  imperative,  this 
was  a  wonderful  revelation,  —  the  awful  debt 
paid, — paid  by  the  Son  in  the  gift  of  his  life. 
And  to-day  this  form  of  the  fear  of  God — even 
where  it  makes  the  man  into  a  wretched,  shiftless 
debtor,  and  God  into  a  stern  creditor,  yet  with 
such  infinite  deeps  of  tenderness  in  his  heart,  that 
he  will  give  his  own  Son  for  us  all  —  creates  a 
far  nobler  issue  than  that  in  which  Antonio  must 
quiver  in  agony  for  ever,  if  for  no  debt  of  his 
own,  then  for  a  debt  contracted  by  his  remotest 
ancestor.  There  is  that  in  this  idea,  which  has 
carried  a  wonderful  weight  with  it,  —  such  a  fear 
has  its  own  touch  of  tender  reverence.  Convince 
a  man  that  this  is  true,  and  he  will  be  awe- 
stricken  and  inspired  to  some  fearful  love.  The 
life  and  death  that  lianas   on   such   conditions 


THE   FEAR   OF   GOD.  187 

must  be  of  vast  importance,  and  a  God  at  once 
so  relentless  and  so  merciful  cannot  be  slighted. 

Yet  when  we  come  to  question  the  system,  it 
will  not  stand.  The  moment  you  open  the  idea 
with  the  master-key  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
you  begin  to  see  that  it  cannot  be  true.  It  is  the 
father  punishing  the  brother  who  is  innocent  for 
the  brother  who  is  guilty.  And  you  cannot  help 
seeing,  that,  however  willing  the  brother  may  be 
to  bear,  it  is  against  the  nature  of  true  greatness 
in  the  father  to  inflict  the  penalty.  It  is  no  more 
right  to  do  so,  than  it  was  right  to  punish  the 
French  page  for  the  fault  of  the  French  prince. 
If  you  admit  the  principle,  you  do  so  at  the 
expense  of  the  clearest  ideas  of  justice  that  are 
found  in  your  own  soul,  and  that  guide  you  in 
every  other  decision.  Either  the  doctrine  must 
be  wrong  in  some  radical  way,  or  the  ideas  that 
are  right  in  every  thing  beside  are  wrong  in  this. 
If  it  was  right  that  Christ  should  bear  your  sins 
in  his  own  body  on  the  tree,  according  to  the 
common  interpretation  of  that  doctrine,  it  will  be 
right  for  you  to  punish  the  elder  child  in  your 
home  the  next  time  the  younger  breaks  into 
some  mad  freak  of  temper.     Besides,  this  doing 


188  THE   FEAR   OF   GOD. 

wrong  with  the  sure  conviction  that  some  one 
must  suffer  for  it,  and  then  crouching  down 
behind  another  while  he  bears  the  blow ;  this 
running  into  a  debt  that  you  are  sure  another 
will  have  to  pay ;  this  lying  on  the  shady  side 
of  the  barn  all  through  the  summer,  because 
you  know  you  can  beg  enough  corn  to  put  you 
through  the  winter,  from  the  man  who  toils  all 
day  in  the  hot  sun,  and  who  loves  you  so  well, 
good,  merciful  man  that  he  is,  that  you  are  sure 
he  will  not  let  you  starve,  —  does  not  appear  to 
me  to  be  the  best  way  to  promote  a  stout,  deep, 
steady,  personal  manliness.  If  you  take  the  prin- 
ciple out  of  the  realm  of  religious  ideas,  and 
bring  it  into  common  life,  as  a  rule,  it  makes  a 
man  small,  tricky,  and  vicious.  Then  this  unlim- 
ited promise  to  pay  creates  all  sorts  of  unfair  and 
unsound  debts.  When  the  common  run  of  men 
believe  that  they  can  have  all  they  ask  for,  they 
are  not  likely  to  be  particular  about  pennies. 
Our  government  is  cheated  every  day  in  the  exact 
ratio  of  the  confidence  of  depraved  rogues,  that 
they  can  get  their  claims  pulled  through,  and  the 
better  the  man  to  indorse  the  claim,  the  more 
they  will  put  down.     If  a  good  man  will  say  this 


THE   FEAIl   OF   GOD.  189 

is  all  right  when  it  is  all  wrong,  they  will  slide 
in  another  cipher  with  perfect  assurance.  Now 
meet  this  doctrine  of  vicarious  payment  fairly, — 
consider  it  as  if  you  heard  it  for  the  first  time. 
If  you  will  not  be  afraid  of  polarized  words  and 
ideas,  you  will  see  that  this  must  be  the  result  tc 
most  men  of  even  the  advanced  doctrine,  that 
God  is  an  embodiment  of  justice  or  bargain,  de- 
manding strict  payment,  but  willing  to  accept 
any  gold,  if  it  be  gold.  It  breaks  up  the  inner 
fastnesses  of  the  man's  soul,  by  pushing  his  ulti- 
mate responsibility  upon  another.  It  makes  God 
fearful,  not  because  I  owe  him,  but  because  he 
will  be  sure  to  make  his  claim  good  somewhere. 
It  makes  a  man  false  in  the  precise  measure  of 
his  own  essential  meanness.  So  that  it  was  per- 
fectly natural  for  that  wretched  man  in  Phila- 
delphia to  plot  all  the  week  how  to  cheat  his 
bank  out  of  unlimited  thousands,  and  then  on  the 
Sunday  go  to  Girard  College  and  snuffle  to  the 
boys,  "  Now,  my  young  friends,  I  have  come  here 
to-day  to  try  if  I  can  save  one  soul ;"  because 
saving  a  soul  and  standing  square  in  absolute 
personal  righteousness  is  by  such  doctrine  not 
essentially  the  same  thing.  In  a  word,  it  uneen- 
tres  a  man.      It  lowers  lofty  standards  so  that 


190  THE   FEAR   OF   GOD. 

you  need  not  climb  up  painfully  to  reach  them  ; 
but  just  slide  along  on  the  dead  level,  and  you 
are  there.  It  fills  the  world  with  churches,  but 
the  Church  with  worldliness.     The  result  is, — 

"  God  and  the  world  we  worship  both  together; 
Draw  not  our  laws  to  him,  but  his  to  ours : 
Untrue  to  both,  so  prosperous  in  neither, 
A  chilling  summer  bringing  barren  flowers." 

So  then  we  must  — 

"  Unwise  in  our  distracted  interests  be; 
Strangers  to  God  and  true  humanity." 
Too  good  for  great  things,  and  too  great  for  good, 
Letting  I  dare  not  wait  upon  I  would." 

IV.  But  a  far  higher  fear  of  God  is  to  fear 
him  as  we  fear  the  surgeon,  who  must  cut  out 
some  dreadful  gangrene  in  order  to  save  the  life. 
Such  a  fear  as  this  really  touches  the  outskirts 
of  love,  —  it  is  love  and  fear  blended.  When  I 
went  to  Fort  Donelson  to  nurse  our  wounded 
men,  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  the  personal 
attendant  of  a  gentleman  whose  skill  as  a  sur- 
geon was  only  equalled  by  the  wonderfully  deep, 
loving  tenderness  of  his  heart,  as  it  thrilled  in 
every  tone  of  his  voice  and  every  touch  of  his 
hand.*     And  it  all  comes  up  before  me  now,  how 


*  My  position  as  nurse  for  this  gentleman,  Dr.  R.  L.  Rea,  of  this 
city,  gave  me  such  insight  as  inspired  this  poor  tribute  to  his  worth 


THE   FEAR   OF   GOD.  191 

he  would  come  to  the  men,  fearfully  mangled  as 
they  were,  and  how  the  nerve  would  shrink  and 
creep  ;  and  how,  with  a  wise,  hard,  steady  skill, 
he  would  cut  to  save  life,  forcing  back  tears  of 
pity  only  that  he  might  keep  his  eye  clear  for  the 
delicate  duty,  speaking  low  words  of  cheer  in 
tones  heavy  with  tenderness ;  then,  when  all  was 
over,  and  the  poor  fellows,  fainting  with  pain 
knew  that  all  was  done  that  could  be  done,  and 
done  only  with  a  severity  whose  touch  was  love, 
how  they  would  look  after  the  man  as  he  went 
away,  sending  unspoken  benedictions  to  attend 
him.  Now,  a  fear  like  this  is  almost  the  loftiest 
fear  of  God  that  has  come  to  the  human  soul. 
Here  we  find  ourselves  among  all  sorts  of  deprav- 
ities. Sins  that  are  as  certainly  shattering  even 
to  the  body  as  the  splint  of  a  shell  or  a  rifle- 
bullet,  hit  thousands  of  our  fellows  on  every  side. 
They  hit  vs.  We  can  all  count  some  friend  or 
kinsman  who  has  been  killed  by  sin  as  surely  as 
if  he  had  been  shot  down ;  and  it  may  be  not  one 
of  us  can  look  back  from  the  standpoint  of  forty 


and  goodness.  He  was  one  of  a  noble  band,  all  full  of  the  same 
spirit.  I  am  glad  to  Bay  such  words  of  them,  and  all  the  more  that  I 
am  sure  they  a< -\  er  expected  to  hear  them. 


192  THE   FEAR   OF   GOD. 

years,  and  say,  "  I  am  willing  to  take  the  unal- 
terable and  eternal  consequence  of  all  my  deeds 
done  to  man  and  woman,  ever  since  I  was  a  man." 
And  this  consciousness  of  something  wrong  in 
us,  this  sight  of  something  wrong  about  us, 
makes  havoc  of  the  peace  of  the  soul ;  we  feel 
in  our  own  life  a  thread  of  the  common  cancer. 
Again,  not  sin  only,  but  death,  is   fearful  to 

many  of  us  ;  we  shrink  from  the  touch  of  God, 
ft 
as  the  man  shrinks  from  the  surgeon's  knife.     It 

is  doubtless  some  pain  to  enter  into  any  life,  and 
that  is  why  we  shrink  from  it.  It  must  be  some 
pain  to  the  worm  in  the  water  to  strip  away  the 
dear  old  shell  in  which  it  has  lived  for  seventy 
years  (the  seventy  years  of  a  worm),  to  pierce 
out  into  the  air  and  spread  its  wings,  though  the 
next  moment  it  shall  exult  and  sing  as  it  floats 
in  the  wonderful  new  world,  with  the  rich  color, 
and  the  sunshine,  and  the  unbounded  gladness. 
Now  there  is  this  intuition  of  our  intimate  de- 
pendence on  God  in  every  soul.  Are  we  in  sin  ? 
God  must  help  us  out  of  it  finally,  in  some  quick, 
painful  way,  as  the  surgeon  helps  the  sufferer. 
Our  suffering  appeals  at  once  to  his  pity,  his 
mercy,  and  his  love.     Arc  we  in  life  ?     Through 


THE   FEAR   OF   GOD.  193 

him  we  must  brave  the  great  change  of  our  being, 
and  begin  to  live  again  in  sonic  wonderful  new 
way.  So  comes  this  fear  of  God,  —  at  once  a 
shrinking  and  a  clinging,  inevitable  and  fearful. 
And  this  is  about  as  far  as  most  liberal  Chris- 
tians go:  they  accepl  this  life  as  a  mystery  of 
trouble  and  expect  that  God,  who  has  certainly 
brought  them  into  it,  will  certainly  help  them 
through  it.  So,  with  a  touch  of  terror,  as  a 
woman  would  trust  herself  in  a  frail  boat  on  our 
lake  because  she  believed  in  the  captain,  though 
the  waters  were  turbulent  and  the  sky  dark,  we 
trust  ourselves  to  God,  and  bear  the  peril  as 
bravely  as  we  can,  —  not  always  quite  sure  that 
we  shall  win  through,  yet  as  the  life  deepens, 
watching,  with  ever-fresh  trust,  the  pilot  at  the 
helm,  sure  as  the  days  wear  on,  that  the  master 
knows  best  what  to  do,  and  that  we  have  only  to 
bear  the  burden,  meet  the  inevitable  lot,  and  trust 
to  the  end. 

V.  Then,  finally,  there  is  a  fear  of  God  which 
is  more  of  love  than  fear,  —  a  fear  that  lias  no  tor- 
ment. There  is  an  inspiration  by  which  our  duties 
rise  up  before  us,  vested  in  a  nobleness  like  that 
which  touches  the  landscape  for  a  great  painter. 
9 


194  THE    FEAR    OF    GOD. 

The  true  artist  works  ever  with  a  touch  of  fear. 
He  stands  at  his  task,  his  heart  trembling  with 
the  great  pulses  of  his  conception.  Carefully, 
fearfully,  as  if  his  soul  were  to  be  saved  by  it 
(as  indeed  in  some  measure  it  will  be),  he  tries 
to  bring  out  the  mystery  of  truth  and  beauty. 
There  is  a  deep  gladness  and  a  deep  fear  as,  line 
by  line,  touching  and  retouching  with  infinite 
care,  he  perfects  at  last  to  the  visible  sight  the 
vision  of  beauty  that  was  in  him.  And  he  is 
fearful  exactly  as  he  sees  the  perfection  of  the 
thing  he  is  trying  to  embody.  A  dauber  has  far 
less  fear  than  Church  when  he  paints  Niagara. 
Now,  believe  me,  God  hides  some  ideal  in  every 
human  soul.  At  some  time  in  our  life  we  feel  a 
trembling,  fearful  longing  to  do  some  good  thing. 
Life  finds  its  noblest  spring  of  excellence  in  this 
hidden  impulse  to  do  our  best.  There  is  a  time 
when  we  arc  not  content  to  be  such  merchants 
or  doctors  or  lawyers  as  we  see  on  the  dead 
Level  or  below  it.  The  woman  longs  to  glorify 
her  womanhood  as  sister,  wile,  or  mother.  I  say, 
in  the  heart  of  us  all,  there  is  this  higher  thought 
of  life  struggling  for  a  realization.  All  at  some 
time  cry,  "  Not  that  I  have  already  attained,  or 


THE   FEAR   OF   GOD.  195 

am  already  perfect,"  and  then  the  fierce  conflict  of 
life  begins.  The  tempter  tells  me  that  if  I  try  to 
be  an  ideal  merchant  or  lawyer  or  doctor  I  shall 
go  under.  If  it  is  a  rule  to  mix  inferior  wheat, 
and  call  it  No.  1;  to  pull  a  rogue  through  in 
spite  of  justice,  when  all  the  world  knows  he  is 
a  rogue;  to  keep  a  patient  lingering  a  little  for 
an  extra  fee,  —  then  I  must  do  it,  or  I  am  not  fit 
for  this  world.  I  must  go  where  the  wheat  is  all 
pure  and  plump,  and  the  judge  has  a  clean  calen- 
dar, and  the  inhabitants  never  say,  "  I  am  sick." 
If  the  woman  will  not  dress,  and  dance  over 
ground  enough  to  kill  her  if  she  had  to  walk  it 
doing  good,  in  order  to  secure  some  darling 
match  for  herself  or  daughter,  then  she  must  go 
where  there  is  neither  marrying  nor  giving  in 
marriage.  The  young  man  must  see  life,  or  be  a 
spoon.  Friends,  that  is  the  devil,  —  the  tempt- 
tation  in  the  wilderness,  that  every  soul  must 
n teet  and  faint  and  stagger  under,  in  some  form 
or  other.  But  here,  on  the  other  side,  is  God, — 
God  standing  silently  at  the  door  all  day  long, 
—  God  whispering  to  the  soul,  that  to  be  pure 
and  true  is  to  succeed  in  life,  and  whatever  we 
get  short   of    that   will   burn   up   like   Btubble, 


196  THE    FEAR   OF   GOD. 

though  the  whole  world  try  to  save  it.  Now 
here  is  the  fear  of  God  that  is  loftiest  of  all.  It 
comes  to  youth  and  maiden  at  the  portals  of  life, 
to  make  them  beautiful  in  all  sweet  sunny  hu- 
manities, yet  to  keep  them  pure  as  the  angels. 
It  comes  to  the  wredded  man  and  wife  whose  little 
children  are  beginning  to  trouble  the  home,  just 
as  the  angel  troubled  the  waters  in  the  ancient 
pool,  that  the  home  may  be  a  fountain  of  healing 
for  the  hurts  and  bruises  of  the  world  ;  and  it 
helps  them  to  look  into  that  future  when  those 
little  pattering  feet  shall  tramp  strong  and  steady 
in  the  ranks  of  life,  those  voices  breathe  out  com- 
fort and  inspiration  for  fainting  souls,  and  those 
hands,  now  so  restless  with  electric  mischief, 
grow  skilful  in  the  achievements  of  the  age.  It 
whispers  how  it  will  lead  you  and  help  you,  if 
you  will  but  keep  your  soul  open  to  it ;  how  you 
shall  be  able  to  bring  those  children  into  the 
great  ranks  of  God's  holiest  and  best,  as  you  take 
heed  to  that  monitor.  It  comes  to  the  aged,  and 
brings  sounds  from  over  that  golden  sea  beyond 
which  abides  their  home.  It  tells  them  to  listen 
to  no  tempter  that  would  make  the  grave  the  end 
of  all,  but  to  keep  an  open,  tremulous  car  lor  the 


THE   FEAR   OP   GOD.  197 

whispers  that  ever  come  from  the  upper  world, 
when  the  turmoil  of  life  is  over  and  the  pilgrim 
rests  for  a  season.  0  friends,  it  is  to  every  man 
and  woman  the  still  small  voice,  whispering- 
whatever  at  that  moment  we  must  hear  if  we 
will  live !  Not  shouting,  but  ivlikpering,  so  that 
we  must  listen  with  a  loving  fear  lest  we  miss 
the  accent ;  not  repeating  louder  for  our  heed- 
lessness, but  whispering,  so  that  we  must  fear 
lest  we  miss  the  word.  God  with  us,  not  as  an 
Eastern  despot,  or  a  stern  bargainer,  or  a  painful 
helper,  but  a  pleading  love.  Not  the  thunder, 
beating  in  terrific  reverberations  down  the  peaks 
of  Sinai ,  but  that  gentle  voice  on  the  mount  of 
the  beatitudes,  crying,  "  Blessed  are  the  poor, 
blessed  are  the  meek,  blessed  are  the  merciful, 
blessed  are  the  mourners,  blessed  are  the  pure 
in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God." 


.      XI. 

A    TALK    TO    MOTHERS. 

1  Sam.  ii.  18,  19 :  "  Samuel  ministered  before  the  Lord,  being  a  child. 
Moreover,  his  mother  made  hhn  a  little  coat,  and  brought  it  to 
him  from  year  to  year." 

This  is  part  of  a  most  touching  story,  how  God 
gave  to  a  Hebrew  mother  a  man-child,  many 
years  after  her  wedding ;  and  the  gift  was  such 
a  gladness,  that  she  dedicated  him  back  to  God, 
and  carried  him  back  to  the  temple,  there  to 
minister  all  his  life.  And  once  every  year  she 
made  him  a  little  coat,  and  carried  it  up  to 
the  temple  herself,  when  she  went  to  see  her 
child,  whom  she  called  Samuel,  which,  being  in- 
terpreted, is,  "  He  who  was  asked  of  God." 

We  have  three  separate  statements  of  the 
nature  of  a  little  child.  The  first  is,  that,  in 
some  way,  it  is  utterly  depraved  and  lost ;  not 
capable  of  conceiving  one  good  thought,  saying  one 
good  word,  or  doing  one  good  thing,  being  — 

"  Sprung  from  the  man  whose  guilty  fall 
Corrupts  his  rare  and  taints  us  all." 

[198] 


A    TALK    TO    MOTHERS.  199 

This  statement,  to  my  mind,  is  untrue,  for  two 
reasons.  The  first  is,  that  it  clashes  with  the 
loftiest  revelation  ever  made  to  our  race  ahout 
the  child-nature.  Jesus  said,  "  Suffer  the  little 
children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them 
not:  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
One  cannot  help  seeing  here  the  inevitable 
logic.  If  the  child  is  utterly  depraved,  and 
of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  wherein 
does  the  kingdom  of  heaven  differ  from  the 
kingdom  of  hell  ? 

I  sat  at  my  desk,  trying  to  put  my  second 
and  most  impregnable  objection,  as  it  springs 
out  of  the  nature  of  the  little  child  itself,  into 
words.  And  one  sat  at  my  feet,  rich  in  the 
possession  of  a  new  toy;  while  another  went 
and  came,  singing  through  the'  fresh  spring 
morning.  Then  I  said  in  my  heart,  "0  God, 
my  Father!  when  I  can  say  that  this  morn- 
ing sunshine,  pouring  into  my  room  fresh  from 
the  fountains  of  thy  light,  is  a  horror  of  great 
darkness,  and  the  voices  of  the  singing  birds 
are  intended  to  echo  to  us  the  cry  of  lost 
souls;  and  that  the  ever-changing  glory  of 
spring,    summer,    autumn,    and    winter    is    but 


200  A   TALK   TO    MOTHERS. 

the  ever-shifting  shadow  of  the  frown  of  God 
on  a  sin-stricken  world,  —  then  I  can  say  that 
the  light  that  comes  out  of  the  eyes  of  that  lit- 
tle child,  who  has  not  yet  framed  its  tongue  to 
call  me  father,  is  the  hale-fire  of  a  soul  already 
akin  to  the  lost ;  and  the  sweet  confidences  of  the 
other,  the  unlearned  blasphemies  of  despair." 

The  second  theory  is  one  that  I  have  heard 
from  some  liberal  Christians,  —  that  the  heart 
and  nature  of  a  little  child  are  like  a  fresh 
garden-mould  in  the  spring-time.  Nothing  has 
sprung  out  of  it :  but  the  seeds  of  vice  are 
already  bedded  down  into  it ;  and  we  must 
plant  good  seeds,  and  nurse  them  until  there 
is  a  strong  growth  of  the  better  promise, — 
carefully,  all  the  while,  weeding  out  whatever 
is  bad  as  it  comes  to  the  surface.  At  the  first 
glance,  this  seems  to  be  about  the  truth.  Still, 
I  fear  it  has  not  come  so  much  out  of  that 
true  philosophy  which  is  founded  on  a  close 
observation  of  our  nature,  as  it  has  come  out 
of  a  desire  not  to  differ  so  very  far  from  those 
who  denounce  us  heartily  as  unchristian. 

Such  an  idea  of  the  child-nature  is,  after  all, 
a  moderate  theory  of  infant  depravity ;    and   as 


A   TALK   TO   MOTHERS.  201 

such  I  reject  it,  so  far  as  it  gives  any  pre- 
occupation and  predominance  to  sin,  and  ac- 
cept the  third  theory,  as  the  true  and  pure 
gospel  about  the  child-nature  ;  namely,  that  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  in  a  child,  is  like  unto  a 
man  that  Bowed  <jood  seed  in  his  field;  hut  af- 
terward, while  men  slept,  his  enemy  came  and 
sow fil  tares  among  the  wheat,  and  went  away; 
and  when  the  blade  sprung  up,  and  brought 
forth  fruit,  then  appeared  the  tares  also.  That 
is  the  true  statement  of  this  fact,  my  friends, 
as  I  understand  it.  The  good  seed  is  sown 
first,  —  good  principles  and  powers  are  the  first 
to  be  set  down  in  the  fresh,  young  heart ;  while 
even  the  tares  themselves  are  not  utterly  worth- 
less weeds,  but  degenerate  wheat,  a  poorer  grain, 
but  never  utterly  useless  or  worthless ;  for  the 
better  kinds  of  it  can  be  made  into  a  rather 
bitter  bread,  while  even  the  worst  can  be  burnt 
up.  and  be  made  to  enrich  the  ground  for  an- 
other harvest  of  the  nobler  grain.  The  good 
is  primary,  and  purely  good  ;  the  bad  is  second- 
ary, and  not  totally  bad.  And  every  little  child 
ministers  before  the  Lord,  and  every  mother 
makes  his  garments  from  year  to  year. 


202  A    TALK    TO    MOTHERS. 

I  propose  to  speak  briefly  on  the  nature  and 
possibilities  of  this  mother  influence,  what  it 
is,  and  what  it  may  be.  And  note,  first  of  all, 
that  while  in  after-life  the  father  may  come  to 
an  equal  or  even  stronger  influence  over  the 
child,  —  in  the  plastic  morning  of  life,  when 
the  infant  soul  puts  on  its  first  robes  of  joy 
and  love  and  faith  and  wonder,  the  hand  of  the 
mother  alone  is  permitted  to  give  them  their 
rich  quality  and  texture ;  and,  to  her  loving 
and  skilful  eye  only  is  left  the  decision  of  their 
comfort  and  adaptation  to  the  ever-varying  na- 
ture of  every  little  one  that  comes  into  the 
world.  God  has  made  it  so  in  his  infinite  and 
unfailing  providence. 

"  Women  know 
The  way  to  rear  up  children  (to  be  just); 
They  know  a  simple,  merry,  tender  knack 
Of  tying  sashes,  fitting  baby-shoes, 
And  stringing  pretty  words  that  make  no  sense, 
And  kissing  full  sense  into  empty  words; 
Which  things  are  corals  to  cut  lite  upon, 
Although  such  t  rilles.     Children  learn,  by  such, 
Love's  holy  earnest  in  a  pretty  play, 
And  get  nut  over-early  solemnized. 


Fathers  love  as  well, 

hut  still  with  heavier  brains, 

And  wills  more  consciously  responsible, 
And  tmt  as  wist  ly,  since  less  foolishly." 

To  every  little   child,  in   the   beginning,  this 


A   TALK   TO   MOTHERS.  203 

earth  is  without  form  and  void  ;  and  the  first 
great  light  that  God  brings  out  of  the  darkness 
is  the  face  of  its  mother,  and  the  first  sound 
that  ever  enters  the  silent  sea  of  the  infant  soul 
is  the  voice  of  the  mother  as  she  bends  over  it, 
endeavoring  to  find  some  answering  glance  and 
call  of  recognition.  And  God  has  made  it  so, 
that  the  first  sure  sound  the  mother  ever  hears 
breaking  out  of  that  silence,  is  more  to  her  than 
the  great  harmonies  that  were  heard  when  the 
morning  stars  sang  together,  and  all  the  sons 
of  God  shouted  for  joy.  So,  how  can  we  wonder 
that  the  tender  nature  of  Christ  gathered  itself 
into  grave  rebuke  to  those  who  would  hinder 
mothers  from  bringing  little  children  to  him, 
that  he  might  put  his  hands  upon  them  and 
bless  them  ?  To  me,  the  question  is  not  whether 
the  children  will  or  will  not  be  benefited  by 
that  benediction,  and  so  whether  it  is  worth 
all  that  trouble  and  hindrance  to  the  Master 
to  let  them  come;  but  whether  that  most  noble 
and  tender  of  all  souls  shall  acknowledge  that 
most  noble  and  tender  of  all  things,  —  the  long- 
ing of  the  mother  for  a  blessing  upon  the  child. 
Here,    then,    is    the    great    fact    set    clearly 


204  A   TALK   TO   MOTHERS. 

before  us.  Mothers,  your  heart  is  the  first 
Paradise  to  every  little  child  God  gives  you ; 
he  finds  rivers  of  water  there,  and  the  fruit 
and  flowers  of  his  earliest  human  world. 
While  he  can  rest  there,  no  wild  beast  can 
make  him  afraid ;  and  when  at  last  he  eats  of 
the  inevitable  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  and 
is  fallen  and  naked  and  ashamed,  your  love  may 
so  clothe  him,  as  he  passes  out  of  his  Eden, 
that  he  will  always  live  in  hope  of  the  Para- 
dise regained.  And  so  "  we  only  never  call 
him  fatherless  who  has  God  and  his  mother." 

Then,  secondly,  while  it  is  eminently  true, 
that  the  little  child  has  such  rich  endowment,  and 
you  have  such  a  wonderful  pre-eminence,  it  is 
also  true,  that  the  possibilities  open  out  two  ways, 
—  you  may  greatly  blight  his  life,  or  you  may 
greatly  bless  it.  The  garments  that  mothers  fit 
on  to  the  spirits  of  little  children,  like  the  gar- 
ments that  they  fit  to  the  outward  form,  only 
more  certainly,  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  that 
child's  whole  future  life.  Let  me  give  you  three 
instances  out  of  many  that  are  kept  in  the  archives 
of  the  world. 

What   would   you  judge   to   be   the   foremost 


A   TALK   TO    MOTHERS.  205 

tiling  in  Washington  ?  The  obvious  answer 
is,  his  perfect,  spotless,  radiant  integrity.  The 
man  does  not  live  in  this  world  who  believes  that 
any  letter  or  despatch  or  state  paper  will  ever 
be  found  in  any  country,  which,  if  well  under- 
stood, can  call  this  great  quality  into  question, 
after  he  had  come  to  the  prime  and  power  of  his 
manhood,  —  as  for  that  matter,  at  any  time  in 
his  whole  life.  Now  it  is  an  instructive  fact  for 
mothers,  that  of  the  few  books  that  have  come 
down  to  us  with  which  the  mother  of  Washington 
surrounded  her  boy  in  early  life,  the  one  most 
worn  and  well  used  is  a  book  on  morals,  by  that 
eminent  pattern  of  the  old  English  integrity,  Sir 
Matthew  Hale;  and  the  place  where  that  book 
opens  easiest,  where  it  is  most  dog-eared  and 
frail,  is  at  a  chapter  on  the  great  account  which 
we  must  all  give  of  the  deeds  done  in  the  body. 
Before  that  boy  went  out  of  his  home,  his  mother 
took  care  to  stamp  the  image  and  superscription 
of  integrity  deeply  on  his  soul. 

What,  after  his  great  genius,  would  you  men- 
tion as  the  most  notable  thing  in  William  Ellery 
Channing  ?  We  answer  at  once,  his  constant 
loyalty  to  a  broad,  free,  fearless  examination  of 


206  A   TALK   TO   MOTHERS. 

every  question  that  could  present  itself  to  him; 
a  frank  confession  of  what  he  believed  to  be  true 
about  it,  no  matter  what  was  said  against  it ;  and 
au  active  endeavor  to  make  that  truth  a  part  of 
his  life.  Ohanning  testified,  with  a  proud  affec- 
tion, of  his  mother :  "  She  had  the  firmness  to 
examine  the  truth,  to  speak  it,  and  to  act  upon 
it,  beyond  all  women  I  ever  knew."  And  so  it 
was,  that,  when  her  frail  boy  must  go  out 
into  the  battle,  she  had  armed  him  with  the 
breastplate  of  righteousness  and  the  helmet  of 
salvation. 

What,  again,  after  his  genius,  stands  foremost 
in  the  life  of  Byron  ?  One  answer  only  can  be 
given,  — his  utter  want  of  faith  in  woman.  That 
one  thing  did  more  to  turn  his  life  into  wormwood 
and  gall,  than  all  beside.  He  lost  faith,  first  of 
all,  in  his  mother.  In  and  through  his  childhood, 
it  was  his  mother  that  clothed  him  in  the  poisoned 
garments  that  so  wofully  penetrated  through  all 
his  after-life,  and  made  him  the  most  miserable 
man  in  his  generation. 

And  so  one  might  go  on  reciting  instances 
almost  endlessly,  if  it  were  needful,  to  show  how 
true  it  is,  that  the  mother  makes  the  man.     What 


A    TALK    TO    MOTHERS.  20"J 

then,  positively,  shall  the  mother  do  who  will  do 
her  best  ? 

I  will  answer  this  question  first  by  noting  what 
she  shall  not  do.  Ami  I  cannot  say  one  thing 
before  this,  —  thai  the  spiritual  garmenl  she  lush- 
ions  for  her  little  one  from  year  to  year  shall 
not  be  Hack.  All  mothers  know  how  long  before 
their  children  can  utter  a  word  (hey  can  read 
gladness  or  gloom  in  the  mother's  face.  Let  her 
smile,  and  the  child  will  laugh  ;  let  her  look  sad, 
and  it  will  weep.  Now,  some  mothers,  if  they 
have  had  great  troubles  or  arc  much  tried  in  their 
daily  life,  get  into  a  habit  of  sadness  that  is  like  a 
second  nature.  The  tone  of  their  voice  and  the 
tenor  of  their  talk  is  all  in  the  pensive,  minor 
key.  They  even  "  sigh  when  they  thank  God." 
They  talk  with  unction  of  who  is  dead,  and  how 
young  they  were,  and  how  many  are  sick,  and 
-what  grid'  is  abroad  altogether  on  the  earth. 
And  the  child  listens  to  all  that  is  said.  The 
mother  may  think  he  does  not  care:  but,  if 
my  own  earliest  memories  are  at  all  true  to  the 
common  childhood,  he  does  care.  These  things 
chill  him  through  and  through.  1  remember 
how  I  carried  the  terror  of  such  a  conversation  in 


2C8  A   TALK   TO    MOTHERS. 

my  heart  once  for  days  and  days,  long  after  the 
good  woman  who  had  spoken  had  forgotten  all 
about  it.  Mothers,  your  children  have  no  part  or 
lot  in  that  matter ;  death  has  no  dominion  over 
them,  and  will  not  have  for  this  many  a  day  to 
come  :  and  it  is  foolish  and  wrong  for  you  to  lead 
them  with  you  into  its  dark  valley  and  shadow. 
If  one  of  these  little  ones  should  be  taken  from 
you,  it  will  be  to  him  only  as  if  he  lay  down  to 
sleep.  No  sweet  fruit  of  childhood  can  grow 
amid  those  grim  shadows  ;  he  has  his  own  little 
griefs,  too,  already  :  he  does  not  need  yours.  So, 
as  he  stands  before  the  Lord,  and  you  fashion  his 
spiritual  garments  from  year  to  year,  put  plenty 
of  gladness  into  them,  —  let  the  first  fear  wait  for 
the  first  sin.  In  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  to  which 
he  now  belongs,  there  is  no  death ;  his  life  is  hid 
with  Christ  in  God. 

Then  I  would  ask  that  the  garment  of  spiritual 
influence,  which  you  are  ever  fashioning,  shall 
not  be  of  I  ho  nature  of  a  straight-jacket.  Has 
your  boy  ;i  heavy  foot,  a  loud  voice,  a  great  appe- 
tite, a  defiant  way,  and  a  burly  presence  alto- 
gether ?  Then  thank  God  for  it,  more  than  if 
yonr    husband    had    a    farm    where    corn    grows 


A   TALK   TO    MOTHERS.  209 

twelve  feet  high ;  your  child  has  in  him  the 
making  of  a  great  and  good  man.  The  only  fear 
is,  that  you  will  fail  to  meet  the  demand  of  this 
strong,  grand  nature,  and  try  to  break  where  you 
ought  to  build.  The  question  for  you  to  solve, 
mother,  is  not  how  to  subdue  him,  but  how  to 
direct  him.  Sometimes  mothers  are  really  selfish  : 
they  refuse  to  pay  the  price  for  this  noble  growth 
of  childhood.  It  is  a  sad  mistake  to  suppose, 
that  this  sturdy  daring  must  be  bad;  first  the 
wheat,  then  the  tares.  Dr.  Kane  was  a  wonder 
of  boisterous  energy  in  childhood,  climbing  trees 
and  roofs,  projecting  himself  against  all  obstacles, 
until  he  got  the  name  of  being  the  worst  boy  in 
Branchtown ;  but  time  revealed  the  divinity  of 
this  rough  life,  when  he  bearded  the  ice-king 
in  his  own  domain,  and  made  himself  a  name  in 
Arctic  exploration  second  to  none.  The  tumult, 
again,  when  Sydney  Smith  was  a  boy,  was  a  mar- 
vel of  boisterous  clamor.  But  when  that  voice 
set  itself  to  be  heard  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review," 
it  roused  a  whole  kingdom  ;  and  the  abundant 
vitality  that  set  all  distracted  in  childhood,  so 
penetrated  and  informed  the  whole  after-life,  as 
to  make  its  record  one  of  the  best  biographies  in 


210  A   TALK   TO   MOTHERS. 

the  English  tongue.  Do  not  break  your  child's 
passionate  temper,  but  direct  it.  God  knows,  by 
and  by,  he  will  need  it  all  to  batter  down  great 
wrongs,  and  plead  and  work  for  the  great  right. 
Do  not  fret  and  fear  over  the  predominance  of  the 
animal  above  the  spiritual  nature:  it  is  all  right 
that  it  should  be  so  at  the  start.  The  first  man 
is  of  the  earth,  earthy ;  the  second  man  is  -the 
Lord  from  heaven.  First  comes  that  which  is 
natural,  —  or,  as  the  better  translation  has  it, 
first  comes  that  which  is  animal ;  afterward,  that 
which  is  spiritual.  Do  you  know  that  the  pure, 
the  almost  ethereal  Channing  was  so  full  of  this 
predominant  animal  nature  in  early  childhood, 
that  the  first  idea  of  glory  in  heaven,  as  he  him- 
self tells  us,  that  ever  dawned  upon  his  mind,  was 
in  connection  with  an  old  colored  cook.  There 
is  a  good,  wholesome  oversight  that  is  beautiful  in 
all  mothers  ;  but  the  true  root  of  that  ought  to  be 
a  great  conviction,  that  our  nature  is  loyal,  and 
needs  no  breaking.  We  never  break  a  young 
tree ;  and,  thank  God,  deformity  is  the  rare  ex- 
ception in  the  spirit,  as  in  the  form.  Blessed  is 
that  mother  who  shall  know  this,  and  let  every 
good  gift  of  God  in  the  little  child  have  its  own 
free  nlav. 


A    TALK   TO    MOTHERS.  211 

Then,  positively,  there  is  one  most  important 
principle  that  no  mother  can  ever  forget.  A  good 
and  groat  man,  whose  children  are  remarkable 
for  nobility  and  beauty,  said  to  me  once  in  a  let- 
ter, "  I  count  a  great  part  of  the  grace  in  my 
children  from  a  new  reading  of  the  old  command- 
ment. I  read  it  always,  '  Parents,  obey  your 
children  in  the  Lord:  for  this  is  right.' "  That 
I  conceive  to  be  especially  the  true  reading  for 
you,  mothers.  When  he  is  altogether  with  you, 
his  demands  are  especially  sacred,  and  must  be 
obeyed. 

I  shall  not  speak  in  any  material  sense ;  but, 
when  the  child  begins  to  think,  he  at  once  begins 
to  question.  He  is  set  here  in  a  great  universe 
of  wonder  and  mystery,  and  he  wants  to  know  its 
meaning  and  the  meaning  of  himself.  But  some 
mothers,  when  their  children  come  to  them  with 
their  questions  in  all  good  faith,  either  treat  the 
question  with  levity,  or  get  afraid,  and  reprove 
the  little  thing  for  asking.  Mothers,  this  is  all 
wrong.  This  is  one  of  your  rarest  opportunities 
to  clothe  the  spirit  of  your  child  in  the  fresh 
garments  that  will  make  him  all  beautiful,  as  he 
stands  before  the  Lord.     He  can  ask  questions 


212  A    TALK    TO    MOTHERS. 

you  cannot  answer ;  but  be  sure  that  the  ques- 
tions that  can  be  answered  are  best  answered 
simply  and  directly.  The  soul  hungers  and 
thirsts  to  know :  indeed,  it  must  know.  Those 
moments  are  the  seed-time ;  and  if  you  do  not  then 
cast  in  the  wheat,  the  enemy  will  sow  the  tares. 

Then,  as  this  primitive  woman  would  be  ever- 
more careful  to  meet  the  enlarged  form  of  her 
child,  as  she  went  to  see  him  stand  before  the  Lord 
from  year  to  year,  will  you  be  careful  to  meet  the 
enlarged  spirit  of  your  child  ?  I  do  fear  for  the 
mother  who  will  not  note  how  her  child  demands 
and  needs  ever  new  and  larger  confidences.  The 
last  thing  mothers  learn  often  is,  that  the  child  is 
always  becoming  less  a  child.  It  is  a  great  bless- 
ing to  that  child  whose  mother  can  be  well-timed, 
and  yet  perfectly  delicate,  in  her  revelations  ;  who 
can  know  when  to  reveal  truth  and  falsehood, 
nobility  and  meanness,  purity  and  its  opposite, 
—  in  thought  and  word,  — yet  not  have  the  child 
look  up  in  wonder  to  ask  what  she  means ;  who 
can  feel,  in  her  prophetic  and  intuitive  spirit,  the 
true  time  for  every  thing,  —  that  she  is  never  too 
late,  and  never  too  soon ;  whose  children  will 
bless  her,  because  her  words  were  always  more  of 


A   TA.LK   TO    MOTHERS.  213 

a  revelation  than  of  a  warning  or  a  rebuke.  Moth- 
ers, as  I  speak  to  you  so  of  your  great  trust,  I 
feel  still  more  deeply  your  great  reward ;  for  you 
are  greatly  rewarded.  As  I  have  thought  of  what 
I  should  say  to  you  of  what  you  should  be,  I  have 
seemed  all  the  while  only  to  be  recalling  what  a 
mother  once  was  to  a  child.  For  my  spirit  went 
back  through  many  years  to  a  little  valley, 
"  among  the  rocks  and  winding  scaurs,"  where 
I  saw  a  man  and  woman,  in  their  early  wedded 
prime,  sitting  together.  And  as  I  sat  with  them, 
watching  their  faces  shine  in  the  summer  Sunday 
sunlight,  they  seemed  to  me  as  the  faces  of 
angels.  Then  the  woman  sang  some  words  I 
have  never  forgotten,  out  of  a  sweet  old  Metho- 
dist hymn.     These  were  the  words  :  — 

"  How  happy  is  the  pilgrim's  lot ! 
How  free  from  every  anxious  thought, 
From  worldly  hope  and  fear ! 
Confined  to  neither  court  nor  cell, 
His  soul  disdains  on  earth  to  dwell; 
He  only  sojourns  here." 

And  from  that  time,  somehow,  I  knew,  in  a  new 
way,  that  this  was  my  mother.  And  now  her 
hair  is  white  as  snow,  and  she  bends,  in  the  ripe- 
ness of  her  fruitful  and  graceful  life,  waiting  for 
the  angels  to  come  and  carry  her,  after  her  long 


214  A   TALK   TO    MOTHERS. 

widowhood,  to  another  of  the  many  mansions, 
where  husband  and  sons  are  watching  and  wait- 
ing for  her  coming.  And  is  not  this  what  a 
million  sons  will  tell  of  their  mothers  ?  Blessed 
is  that  man  whose  mother  has  made  all  mothers 
worshipful ;  blessed  is  that  man  who  can  make 
such  an  entry  in  his  diary  as  this  of  "Washington 
in  his  prime  :  "  I  got  away,  and  spent  the  evening 
with  my  mother." 

Mothers,  you  have  great  sorrows  ;  but  then 
you  have  an  exceeding  joy.  To  you,  more  than 
to  fathers,  belongs  the  responsibility  ;  but  to  you, 
more  than  to  them,  comes  the  great  reward.  No 
cares,  no  tears,  no  efforts  you  make  are  ever 
really  made  in  vain.  When  your  child  grows  up 
to  his  manhood,  if  that  is  noble  and  beautiful,  he 
will  gladly  say,  "  I  owe  it  most  of  all  to  my 
mother."  And,  if  it  is  lost  and  stricken  with  sin, 
he  will  fear  above  all  the  sorrow  of  his  mother, 
or  to  meet  his  mother,  or  that  she  shall  know  of 
his  sin.  And  the  first  pulses  of  his  penitence 
will  always  come  at  the  thought  of  his  mother. 
And  then  if,  after  all  your  love  and  care,  the  sil- 
ver cord  is  loosed,  and  the  golden  bowl  broken, 
and  your  treasure  is  gathered  into  the  safe  keep- 


A    TALK    TO    MOTHERS.  215 

ing  of  the  world  to  come,  there  may  still  come  a 
solemn  gladness,  even  through  your  woe,  as  you 
realize  that  he  is  not  unclothed,  but  clothed  upon. 
And  you  shall  see  the  travail  of  your  soul  and  be 
satisfied,  because  he  is  a  nursling  now  of  heaven. 

•'  For  ever  and  for  ever, 
All  in  a  happy  home; 
And  there  to  stay  a  little  while 
Till  all  the  rest  shall  come. 
To  lie  within  the  light  of  God, 
Like  a  babe  upon  the  breast, 
And  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling, 
And  the  weary  are  at  rest." 


XII. 

HEALING  AND   HURTING  SHADOWS. 

Acts  v.  15:  "They  brought  the  sick,  and  laid  them  that  the  shadrw 
of  Peter  passing  by  might  overshadow  some  of  them." 

The  incident  chronicled  in  the  text  transpired  in 
a  time  of  strong  excitement,  when  some  fishermen 
of  Galilee  had  sprung  into  what  was  as  yet  a  very 
local  prominence,  and  were  melting  and  mould- 
ing men's  hearts  in  the  fire  of  a  conversion  fresh 
from  heaven.  They  had  done  very  great  won- 
ders under  the  pressure  of  that  power  for  which 
we  use  the  word  "  miracle,"  though  it  is  about  as 
indefinite  as  the  Indian  term,  "  big  medicine." 
And  these  wonders  were  connected  especially 
with  the  personal  presence  of  one  man,  Peter. 
They  roused  the  entire  country-side.  The  sick 
and  lame,  it  was  rumored,  had  found  a  new  life 
and  health  when  this  man  touched  them  :  then 
all  who  were  sick,  and  all  who  had  sick,  began  to 
hope.  Vast  numbers  were  instantly  brought  in 
to  share  the  new  blessing,  far  more  than  the  mys- 
[216] 


HEALING    AND    HURTING    SHADOWS.  217 

tcrious  power  could  cope  with.  There  has  almost 
always  been  a  point  at  which  the  power  to  work 
these  wonders  becomes  exhausted ;  but  there  is 
no  boundary,  thank  God,  for  human  hope  and 
love.  And  so  it  was,  that,  for  every  one  of  these 
nameless  sufferers,  God  had  put  sympathy  and 
the  longing  to  help  them  into  some  heart. 
Kindly  hands  ministered  to  them  in  the  daytime  : 
tireless  watchers  sat  by  them  in  the  night.  And 
these,  seizing  the  great  opportunity,  came  troop- 
ing in,  bearing  their  sick  with  them,  resolute  to 
leave  nothing  untried  that  had  a  spark  of  hope  in 
it.  And,  when  there  was  no  other  hope  that  the 
blessing  of  healing  would  fall  upon  them,  they 
brought  their  sick,  and  laid  them  where  the 
shadow  of  Peter  might  touch  them  as  he  passed 
by. 

And  this,  first  of  all,  is  a  most  touching  thing, 
this  solemn,  silent  trust  in  the  shadow  of  a  man. 
The  curtain  is  lifted  for  a  single  instant.  You 
see  the  fisherman  pass  in  his  homely  garb.  The 
sick  are  laid  there  in  the  narrow  street,  along 
which  he  is  sure  to  come.  You  can  observe  the 
anxious  attendants  scanning  the  faces  of  the  suf- 
ferers, to  see  if  the  tide  of  life  rises  ever  so  little. 

10 


218  HEALING    AND    HURTING    SHADOWS. 

A  moment  more,  and  the  curtain  falls :  it  is  never 
lifted  again.  To  us  there  is  no  result,  — not  a 
word  that  Peter's  shadow  did  any  good ;  that 
Peter  said  it  was  right  or  wrong  for  them  to  try 
so  poor  a  chance ;  or  that  the  experiment  was 
ever  tried  again.  And  the  incident  has  never 
been  attached,  like  a  steam-tug,  to  any  dogma  or 
doctrine,  in  order  to  drag  it  to  the  private  wharf 
of  a  sectarian  conclusion.  The  thing  alone,  just 
as  it  stands,  is  all  that  is  left ;  and  it  is  enough 
for  my  purpose,  because  it  is  the  indication  of  a 
belief  that  stirred  some  human  souls  in  old  times, 
and  ought  to  stir  them  still,  —  a  belief  that  there  is 
something  in  a  shadow  cast  from  one  over  another, 
of  a  deep  and  potent  power ;  a  deed  done  some 
times  the  hand  has  no  part  in  ;  a  word  said  the 
tongue  never  utters  ;  a  virtue  going  out  of  me,  or 
a  vice,  apart  from  my  determination ;  a  shadow 
of  my  spirit  and  life,  cast  for  good  or  evil,  as 
certain  and  inseparable  as  my  shadow  on  the 
wall. 

And  the  bare  fact,  of  itself,  seems  to  be  hinted, 
in  many  ways,  to  every  man  who  will  watch  with 
care  for  what  is  going  on  under  the  surface  of 
our  life.     For  instance,  there  is  some  mysterious 


HEALING   AND    HURTING   SHADOWS.  219 

force  by  which  men  often  move  us  in  attraction 
or  repulsion  the  first  time  we  meet  them,  —  cast 
a  shadow  of  light  or  darkness  we  cannot  account 
for,  and  cannot  overcome.  What  these  subtle 
influences  are,  no  man  has  ever  told  us.  We  all 
learn  to  reverence  such  impressions,  or  rue  it  if 
we  do  not,  because  they  are  the  shadow  cast  by  a 
substance  we  cannot  see,  that  is  to  act  on  us  for 
bale  or  blessing.     And  — 

"  I  do  not  like  thee,  Doctor  Fell ; 
The  reason  why  I  cannot  tell ; 
But  —  I  do  not  like  thee,  Doctor  Fell,"  — 

is  the  inner  and  instinctive  verdict  we  pass  on 
some  men ;  probably,  also,  that  some  men  pass 
on  us.  Their  shadows  hurt  us  :  our  shadows 
hurt  them. 

I  have  said,  no  man,  so  far,  has  been  able  to 
tell  what  this  shadow  is,  or  the  substance  out  of 
which  it  springs.  I  presume  it  is  as  useless  to 
search  for  it,  as  it  is  to  search  for  the  spring  of 
the  life  itself.  Perhaps  it  can  never  be  made  any 
clearer  than  by  the  oldest  faith  we  can  find  con- 
cerning it,  that  it  is  the  influence  of  the  holy  or 
the  infernal  spirit,  as  it  is  cast  for  good  or  evil 
out  of  the  life  of  man. 


220     HEALING  AND  HURTING  SHADOWS. 

But  in  this  sense  I  do  not  propose  to  dwell 
on  the  question.  I  should  love  to  speak  to  you 
about  some  healing  and  hurting  shadows  far  more 
easily  understood,  —  shadows  of  a  mighty  mo- 
ment, this  way  or  that,  we  are  casting  every  day, 
know  we  are  casting  them,  and  ought  to  know 
what  they  are  coming  to  be  and  to  do,  —  shadows 
cast  out  of  a  perverted  or  a  purified  life  and  pur- 
pose ;  and  so,  in  every  way,  of  unspeakably  vaster 
importance  than  the  more  occult,  remote,  and 
mysterious  shadow  these  men  and  women  in 
Jewry  believed  Peter  cast,  and  we  may  believe  we 
cast,  in  some  fashion,  while  we  may  have  no  will 
at  all  in  the  thing  we  have  done. 

And,  foremost  of  all  shadows,  of  a  greater  bale 
or  blessing  than  perhaps  any  other  we  can  cast, 
is  the  shadow  of  the  home  ;  the  place  where  fa- 
ther, mother,  and  children  dwell  together ;  where, 
four  times  in  a  century,  God  makes  a  new  earth, 
and  out  of  which  he  peoples  a  new  heaven ;  the 
most  holy  place  on  earth,  the  place  no  wise  man 
will  ever  enter  with  a  profane  or  careless  step. 

I  have  sat  bareheaded  in  the  noblest  Gothic 
cathedral  on  the  earth,  listening  to  a  choir  and 
organ  that  to  me  seemed  as  the  voices  of  the  sing- 


HEALING   AND   HURTING    SHADOWS.  221 

ers,  and  the  music  that  is  heard,  when  the  mar- 
tyrs enter  heaven.  And  for  years  I  sat,  in  my 
youth,  in  a  simple  country  church,  on  every 
Sunday  morning,  joining  in  the  old  liturgies,  that, 
in  one  form  or  another,  had  been  said  and  sung 
ever  since  the  Saxon  embraced  the  Christian 
faith.  Just  beside  where  I  sat  was  a  figure  car- 
ven  in  stone,  the  memorial  of  a  man  who  came 
home,  five  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  all  broken 
from  lighting  for  the  Holy  Land  in  one  of  the 
Crusades,  and  was  laid  there  in  the  tomb  to  wait 
for  the  resurrection.  And  out  of  the  low,  latticed 
windows  I  could  look  on  a  green  graveyard, 
where  the  dust  of  Roman  and  Saxon,  Dane  and 
Englishman,  rested,  after  life's  fitful  fever,  within 
the  shadow  of  the  awful  mystery.  And  once,  I 
remember,  I  rose  in  the  gray  light,  and  stood 
alone  by  Niagara,  while  the  sound  of  its  mighty 
thunder  rose  up  fresh  and  pure,  unbroken  as 
yet  and  undefiled  by  the  clamor  of  those  money- 
changers who  deserve  a  whip  of  not  very  small 
cords  for  profaning  that  place,  in  which,  of  all 
places,  the  soul  longs  to  be  alone  with  her  God 
And  I  feel  no  regret,  that  I  did  not  realize  how 
good  the  shadows  are  that  were  cast  over  me 


222  HEALING    AND    HURTING   SHADOWS. 

from  those  mighty  waters,  that  noble  temple, 
and  that  rustic  church  in  which  men  and  women 
have  worshipped  for  a  thousand  years.  I  did  feel 
those  influences.  These  were  sacred  places.  But 
the  most  sacred  place,  the  holiest  of  all,  the  place 
whose  shadow  stretches  over  forty-five  hundred 
miles  of  earth  and  sea,  and  forty  years  of  time, 
and  is  still  a  shadow  of  healing,  is  a  little  place 
built  of  gray  stone.  It  nestled  under  a  hill  that 
sheltered  it  from  the  blasts  that  came  sweeping 
over  the  great  moorlands  out  of  the  North.  It 
was  a  cottage  with  one  door,  and  two  windows 
looking  right  into  the  eye  of  the  South.  A  little 
clump  of  rose-bushes  and  a  plum-tree  grew  fast 
by  the  door ;  and  one  branch  of  that  tree,  reach- 
ing up  to  the  chamber-window,  became,  to  a 
little  child  I  used  to  know,  what  the  tree  of  the 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil  was  to  our  first  par- 
ents in  Eden.  For  the  branch  once  bore  only 
one  plum  ;  and  the  good  mother  said,  "  My  child, 
you  must  not  cat  that  plum ; "  and  rather  proud 
the  man  is  yet,  that  the  boy  obeyed  his  mother, 
and  never  did  eat  the  plum.  And  yet  I  am  not 
sure  that  there  is  much  room  to  be  proud.  It 
was  as  it  is  with  some  other  fruits  on  that  tree  of 


HEALING   AND    HURTING   SHADOW.-.  223 

knowledge.  The  little  hands  did  nut  pluck  the 
fruit  ;  but  the  little  nails  pecked  it,  until  it  was 
not  fit  for  anybody  else  to  pluck.  And  so  I  am 
led  to  wonder  sometimes,  whether  it  was  not  the 
best  thing  alter  all  for  those  first  parents  to 
plunge  in  as  they  did,  and  get  done  with  their 
Paradise  if  they  must,  rather  than  "  keep  the 
word  of  promise  to  the  ear,  and  break  it  to  the 
sense."  But  there,  in  that  bright  little  home, 
hung  round  with  pictures  of  a  marvellous  execu- 
tion, Moses  with  the  tables,  —  which  were  crim- 
son ;  and  Peter  with  a  long  beard,  —  which  was 
green.  There,  bending  over  the  pictures  in  the 
great  Bible,  or  listening  to  psalm  or  song  or  story, 
the  child  lived  in  the  shadow  of  that  home ;  and 
it  became  to  him  as  the  very  gate  of  heaven,  so 
dear  and  good,  that  no  great  cathedral,  no  grand 
scene  in  nature,  no  place  for  worship  anywhere, 
can  be  what  that  gray-stone  cottage  was,  when 
the  world  was  young,  when  roses  bloomed,  and 
fruit  ripened,  and  snow  fell,  as  if  it  were  by 
an  understanding  between  the  child  and  the 
Maker,  —  they  were  always  so  exactly  what  he 
wanted ;  and  I  doubt  not  there  was  such  an 
understandine;. 


224  HEALING   AND    HURTING   SHADOWS. 

Friends,  I  wonder  whether  we  have  any  deep 
consciousness  of  the  shadows  we  are  weaving 
about  our  children  in  the  home ;  whether  we 
ever  ask  ourselves,  if,  in  the  far  future,  when 
we  are  dead  and  gone,  the  shadow  our  home 
casts  now  will  stretch  over  them  for  bane  or 
blessing.  It  is  possible  we  are  full  of  anxiety  to 
do  our  best,  and  to  make  our  homes  sacred  to 
the  children.  We  want  them  to  come  up  right, 
to  turn  out  good  men  and  women,  to  be  an 
honor  and  praise  to  the  home  out  of  which  they 
sprang.  But  this  is  the  pity  and  the  danger, 
that,  while  we  may  not  come  short  in  any  real 
duty  of  father  and  mother,  we  may  yet  cast  no 
healing  and  sacramental  shadow  over  the  child. 
Believe  me,  friends,  it  was  not  in  the  words  he 
said,  in  the  pressure  of  the  hand,  in  the  kiss, 
that  the  blessing  lay  Jesus  gave  to  the  little 
ones,  when  he  took  them  in  his  arms.  So  it  is 
not  in  these,  but  in  the  shadow  of  my  innermost, 
holiest  self ;  in  that  which  is  to  us  what  the  per- 
fume is  to  the  flower,  a  soul  within  the  soul, — 
it  is  that  which,  to  the  child,  and  in  the  home, 
is  more  than  the  tongue  of  men  or  angels,  or 
prophecy  or  knowledge,  or  faith  that  will  move 


HEALING   AND    HURTING   SHADOWS.  225 

mountains,  or  devotion  that  will  give  the  body- 
to  be  burned.  I  look  back  with  wonder  on  that 
old  time,  and  ask  myself  how  it  is  that  most  of 
the  things  I  suppose  my  father  and  mother  built 
on  especially  to  mould  me  to  a  right  manhood 
are  forgotten  and  lost  out  of  my  life.  But  the 
thing  they  hardly  ever  thought  of, —  the  shadow 
of  blessing  cast  by  the  home ;  the  tender,  un- 
' spoken  love  ;  the  sacrifices  made,  and  never 
thought  of,  it  was  so  natural  to  make  them ;  ten 
thousand  little  things,  so  simple  as  to  attract 
no  notice,  and  yet  so  sublime  as  I  look  back  at 
them,  —  they  fill  my  heart  still  and  always  with 
tenderness,  when  I  remember  them,  and  my  eyes 
with  tears.  All  these  things,  and  all  that  belong- 
to  them,  still  come  over  me,  and  cast  the  shadow 
that  forty  years,  many  of  them  lived  in  a  new 
world,  cannot  destroy. 

I  fear,  few  parents  know  what  a  supreme  and 
holy  thing  is  this  shadow  cast  by  the  home,  over, 
especially,  the  first  seven  years  of  this  life  of  the 
child.  I  think  the  influence  that  comes  in  this 
way  is  the  very  breath  and  bread  of  life.  I  may 
do  other  things  for  duty  or  principle  or  religious 
training:  they  are  all,  by  comparison,  as  when 
10* 


226     HEALING  AND  HURTING  SHADOWS. 

I  cut  and  trim  and  train  a  vine ;  and,  when  I 
let  the  sun  shine  and  the  rain  fall  on  it,  the  one 
may  aid  the  life ;  the  other  is  the  life.  Steel 
and  string  are  each  good  in  their  place;  but 
what  are  they  to  sunshine  ?  It  is  said,  that  a 
child,  hearing  once  of  heaven,  and  that  his  father 
would  be  there,  replied,  "  Oh !  then,  I  dinna  want 
to  gang."  He  did  but  express  the  holy  instinct 
of  a  child,  to  whom  the  father  may  be  all  that  is 
good,  except  just  goodness,  —  be  all  any  child 
can  want,  except  what  is  indispensable,  —  that 
gracious  atmosphere  of  blessing  in  the  healing 
shadow  it  casts,  without  which  even  heaven 
would  come  to  be  intolerable. 

But  to  make  this  question  clear,  if  we  can,  let 
me  open  to  you  a  glimpse  of  some  shadows  that 
are  being  cast  in  some  homes  every  day,  not  over 
children  alone,  but  over  men  and  women  also. 

Here  is  a  man  who  has  been  down  town  all 
day,  in  the  full  tide  of  care,  that,  from  morning 
to  night,  floods  the  markets,  offices,  and  streets 
of  all  our  great  cities.  Tired,  nervous,  irritable, 
possibly  a  little  disheartened,  he  starts  for  his 
home.  If  it  is  winter  when  he  enters,  there  is 
a  bit  of  bright  fire,  that  makes  a  bad  temper 


HEALING    AND    HURTING    SHADOWS.  227 

seem  like  a  sin  in  the  contrast ;  a  noise  of  chil- 
dren, that  is  not  dissonant ;  and  an  evident  care 
for  his  comfort,  telling,  plainer  than  any  words, 
how  constantly  he  has  been  in  the  mind  of  the 
house -mother,  while  breasting  the  stress  and 
strife  of  the  day ;  while  a  low,  sweet  voice,  that 
excellent  thing  in  woman,  greets  him  with  words 
that  ripple  over  the  fevered  spirit  like  cool  water. 
And  the  man  who  can  nurse  a  bad  temper,  after 
that,  deserves  to  smart  for  it.  There  is  no  place 
on  the  earth,  into  which  a  man  can  go  with  such 
perfect  assurance  that  he  will  feel  the  shadow 
of  healing,  as  into  such  a  home  as  that.  It  is 
the  very  gate  of  heaven. 

But  I  will  open  another  door.  Here  is  a  home 
into  which  the  man  goes  with  the  same  burden 
on  him,  heart-sick  and  weary  in  every  nerve  and 
fibre  of  his  nature,  to  find  no  forethought,  no 
comfort,  no  repose.  When  he  enters  the  house, 
querulous  questions  meet  him  as  to  whether  he 
has  forgotten  what  he  ought  never  to  have  been 
required  to  remember.  Plaintive  bewailings  are 
made  to  him  of  the  sad  seventy-seventh  disobedi- 
ence of  the  children,  or  the  radical  depravity  of 
the  servants ;  and  a  whole  platoon-fire  of  little 


228  HEALING   AND    HURTING   SHADOWS. 

things  is  shot  at  hini,  so  sharp  and  ill-timed, 
that  they  touch  the  nerve  like  so  many  small 
needles.  It  is  in  such  things  as  these  that  the 
shadows  are  cast,  that  hurt,  but  never  heal ; 
that  drive  thousands  of  men  out  of  their  homes 
into  any  place  that  will  offer  a  prospect  of  com- 
fort and  peace,  even  for  an  hour. 

But  let  me  not  be  unfair.  The  evil  shadow 
may  just  as  certainly  come  from  the  man.  Here 
is  another  man  in  the  mood  I  have  tried  to  touch, 
tired,  irritable,  probably  savage.  All  day  long, 
he  has  fretted  at  the  bit ;  but  society  has  held 
him  in.  He  goes  home  too,  but  it  is  to  spume 
out  his  temper.  He  carries  his  dark  face  into 
the  parlor ;  and  one  glance  at  it,  nay,  the  very 
sound  of  his  foot,  casts  a  shadow  that  can  hurt, 
but  can  never  heal.  If  his  wife  is  silent,  he  calls 
her  sulky :  if  she  speaks,  he  snaps  her.  If  his 
children  come  to  him  with  innocent  teasings 
he  would  give  a  year  of  his  life  some  day  to 
bring  back  again,  they  are  pushed  aside,  or  sent 
out  of  the  room,  or  even — God  forgive  him  — 
are  smitten.  He  eats  a  moody  dinner ;  takes  a 
cigar, — bitter,  I  hope,  and  serves  him  right; 
takes  a  book,  too,  —  not  Charles  Lamb  or  Charles 


HEALING  AND  HURTING  SHADOWS.     229 

Dickens,  I  warrant  you ;  and,  in  one  evening, 
that  man  has  cast  a  shadow  he  may  pray,  some 
day,  in  a  great  agony,  may  be  removed,  and  not 
be  heard. 

But  that  this  is  not  so  everywhere,  or  generally, 
how  many  happy  homes  can  gladly  testify  !  Be- 
lieve me,  the  shadows  of  healing  are  far  more 
and  better  than  the  shadows  that  hurt.  I  am 
not  here  to  cramp  life  and  nature,  and  to  tell 
you  it  is  harder  to  cast  a  shadow  of  blessing 
than  of  bane.  The  nature  of  the  shadow  springs 
from  the  nature  of  the  tree ;  and,  in  this  world, 
the  upas  and  the  poison  vine  are  only  here  and 
there,  while  the  oak  and  the  apple  stand  by 
every  cottage-door.  And  so  it  is,  that  into  the 
vast  majority  of  homes,  all  over  the  earth,  the 
husband  and  father  comes,  when  the  day  is  done, 
like  the  inpouring  of  a  new  life.  He  need  only 
bring  himself  to  be  the  most  welcome  guest. 
The  wise  men,  who  came  only  in  the  shadow  of 
a  star,  did  well  to  bring  gold  and  frankincense 
and  myrrh  to  insure  their  welcome,  where  the 
child  lay ;  but  the  shepherds,  who  bore  with 
them  the  shadow  and  song  of  the  angels,  needed 
no  other  gift. 


230     HEALING  AND  HURTING  SHADOWS. 

Then,  again,  what  shadows  of  healing  fall,  in 
their  turn,  from  the  children !  It  has  been  my 
lot  to  see  a  good  deal  of  home-life.  I  have  lived 
in  the  old  world  and  the  new,  very  intimately  for 
thirty-five  years,  among  the  poor ;  and  in  these 
years,  since  I  became  your  pastor,  in  your  homes 
and  others  like  them,  all  over  this  city  and  coun- 
try, I  have  been  able  from  this  experience  to 
draw  only  one  conclusion.  It  is,  that  no  afflic- 
tion that  can  ever  come  through  children  ever 
equals  that  which  comes  with  their  utter  absence ; 
while  the  heaviest  affliction  to  most,  the  death  of 
the  little  one,  often  casts  a  shadow  of  healing 
that  could  come  in  no  other  way. 

I  went  one  day  to  see  a  poor  German  woman, 
whose  children  had  all  been  down  with  scarlet 
fever.  Four  were  getting  well  again ;  one  was 
dead.  And  it  was  very  touching  to  see  how  the 
shadow  of  that  dead  child  had  come  over  the 
mother,  and  sent  its  blessing  of  healing  through 
all  the  springs  of  her  life.  "  These  are  beautiful 
children,"  I  said.  —  "  Oh,  yes  !  but  I  should  have 
seen  the  one  that  died."  — "  Good  ?"  —  "  Yes  ; 
but  he  was  an  angel.  Patient  had  they  been  in 
their  illness,  —  very  patient;  but  I  should  have 


HEALING   AND   HURTING   SHADOWS.  231 

seen  the  lamb  that  was  gone,  —  he  was  so  pa- 
tient." So,  then,  I  saw  how  it  was  the  shadow 
of  healing  had  touehed  her  from  the  babe  in 
heaven.  While  he  was  with  her,  he  was  like  the 
rest :  she  held  them  all  alike  in  her  heart,  and 
overshadowed  them  all  alike  with  her  love.  But 
now,  when  he  was  gone,  he  cast  the  shadow. 
The  little  shroud  was  turned  into  a  white  robe, 
that  glistened  and  shone  in  the  sun  of  Paradise, 
so  that  she  was  blinded ;  the  broken  prattle  had 
filled  out  into  an  angel-song ;  the  face  shone  as 
the  face  of  an  angel ;  and,  all  unknown  to  herself, 
God  had  laid  her  where  the  shadow  of  the  little 
one  up  in  heaven  could  touch  her  with  its  heal- 
ing. And  no  shadow  is  so  full  of  healing  as  that 
shadow  of  the  child  that  is  always  a  child  in 
heaven.  The  most  gentle  and  patient  will  some- 
times feel  a  touch  of  irritation  at  the  wayward- 
ness of  the  one  that  is  with  us ;  but  no  father  or 
mother  in  this  world  ever  did  bring  back  any 
sense  of  such  a  feeling  toward  the  one  that  is 
gone.  The  shadow  of  healing  destroys  it  for  ever. 
Nay,  it  may  be,  that,  when  some  shadow  that 
hurts  has  settled  down,  they  can  hardly  tell 
how,  between  the  father  and  mother,  and  holds 


232     HEALING  AND  HURTING  SHADOWS. 

hard  on  to  the  heart,  —  so  that  no  prattle  and 
laughter  of  the  little  ones  in  the  home  has  power 
to  lift  and  disperse  it,  —  then  one  touch  of  that 
shadow  cast  from  beyond  the  grave  in  one  instant 
heals  all  the  sickness. 

"  As  through  the  land  at  eve  we  went, 
And  plucked  the  ripened  ears, 
We  fell  out,  my  wife  and  I,  — 
Oh,  we  fell  out,  I  know  not  why, 
And  kissed  again  with  tears. 
For  when  we  came  where  lies  the  babe 
We  lost  in  former  years, 
There,  above  the  little  grave,  — 
There,  above  the  little  grave,  — 
We  kissed  again  with  tears." 

So  it  is  in  some  way  true,  that  my  shadow,  the 
shadow  of  my  spirit  and  life,  is  a  subtle  and 
wonderful  substance  too.  I  think  that  in  some 
deep,  far-reaching  way,  if  my  word  is  true,  but 
my  heart  false,  the  heart  casts  a  shadow  that 
robs  the  word  of  its  finest  essence,  so  that  every 
true  man  I  speak  to  finds  it  difficult  to  believe 
me.  And  if  my  word  is  gentle,  but  my  heart  is 
savage,  the  gentle  word  will  not  win  on  true 
hearts,  because  the  shadow  of  what  is  not  gentle 
will  destroy  its  essence.  But  just  as  in  the  fine 
touch  of  nature,  in  one  of  the  stories  of  Mr.  Dick- 
ens, where  a  man  is  made  to  say  the  most  savage 


HEALING   AND    HURTING   SHADOWS.  233 

and  bitter  things,  while  yet  his  heart  is  a  well- 
spring  of  love  and  gentleness,  and  a  small  bird 
sits  all  the  while  on  his  shoulder,  not  in  the  least 
alarmed ;  so  I  may  say  hard  things  sometimes : 
if  my  heart  is  gentle,  then  the  heart  will  cast  the 
shadow,  and  will  not  even  frighten  a  bird  away. 

Finally,  within  every  healing  shadow  is  God 
himself ;  and  so,  though  it  seem  to  be  a  shadow 
of  the  sorest  sorrow  and  pain,  as  it  was  to  that 
poor  woman,  yet  will  it  lift  me  upward,  and  lead 
me  into  the  light.  Indeed  it  cannot  be  a  hurting 
shadow,  if  God  is  in  it.  I  care  not  how  painful, 
perplexing,  and  dark,  the  very  darkness  will  be 
light  about  me.  If  he  is  with  me,  I  will  fear  no 
evil.     All  the  shadows  of  God  are  divine. 

"  Man}'  shadows  there  be,  but 

Each  points  to  the  sun : 
The  shadows  are  many, 

The  sunlight  is  one. 
Life's  fortunes  may  fluctuate; 

God's  love  does  not; 
And  his  love  is  unchanged, 

While  it  changes  our  lot. 
Let  us  look  to  the  light 

Which  is  common  to  all, 
And  down  to  the  shadows 

That  ever  do  fall,  — 
Ay,  even  the  darkest, 

In  this  faith  alone, 
That  in  tracing  the  shadows, 

We  lind  out  the  sun." 


234  HEALING   AND    HURTING   SHADOWS. 

I  remember  going  once  to  our  lake  shore  with 
my  children,  who  had  carried  me  off  with  them 
to  play.  And  sitting  down  on  a  sand-bank,  while 
they  strayed  along  the  margin  of  the  waters,  I 
gradually  got  into  a  waking  dream  about  the 
mighty  inland  sea.  I  thought  of  the  primitive 
era,  when,  by  some  new  balancing  of  the  internal 
fires,  "  God  said,  Let  the  waters  be  gathered 
together,  and  it  was  so  ;  and  God  saw  that  it  was 
good."  But  the  picture  I  made  of  the  scene  was 
vast,  dreary,  and  uncertain,  as  the  waters  of  the 
lake  seem  to  be  on  the  edge  of  a  wild  winter 
night,  with  not  a  touch  of  beauty  or  blessing 
about  it.  Just  then,  the  children  came  running 
to  me  with  a  treasure  they  had  found  in  the  sand. 
It  was  a  small  shell  of  exquisite  beauty,  bedded  in 
a  piece  of  limestone.  It  was  a  sermon  in  a  stone. 
For  it  said  to  me,  "  I  was  born  in  the  time  you 
have  just  made  so  dreary.  I  was  no  more  to  that 
for  which  I  was  made  than  the  garment  is  for  your 
child.  Yet  you  can  see  how  beautiful  I  must  have 
been,  and  then  guess  what  blessing  past  your 
understanding  was  present  in  the  world  you  have 
made  so  dark.  Look  at  me,  and  repent  of  your 
incipient  atheism,  and  believe  that  wherever  there 


HEALING   AND    HURTING    SHADOWS.  235 

is  life,  let  it  be  ever  so  mean  and  poor,  there 
also  is  God.  The  whole  round  world,  with  all 
its  life,  is  touched  in  some  way  by  his  shadow 
and  his  light." 


XIII. 

THE  HITHER  SIDE. 

Exod.  xxxiii.  18,  20 :  "  And  Moses  said,  I  beseech  thee,  show  me  thy 
glory.  .  .  .  And  the  Lord  said,  There  shall  no  man  see  me,  and 
live." 

My  text  contains  two  things,  —  the  desire  of 
the  man,  and  the  answer  of  God.  The  desire 
of  the  man  is  for  a  full  revelation  of  provi- 
dence and  grace  from  this  side  of  his  life,  —  from 
a  starting-point :  the  answer  of  God  is,  that  can- 
not be,  because,  if  such  a  revelation  was  made,  it 
would  destroy  the  life  itself. 

Moses  had  been  hidden  away  in  the  recesses  of 
Midian,  forty  years,  quietly  feeding  his  flock  and 
his  family.  Pie  expected,  doubtless,  to  die,  as 
he  had  long  lived,  a  shepherd.  But  the  Divine 
Providence  had  marked  out  a  very  different  path 
for  him ;  and  so  he  found  himself  compelled  to 
come  out  of  his  rest,  and  head  the  great  exodus  of 
his  kinsmen  from  Egypt.  At  the  time  when  he 
uttered  this  prayer,  a  part  of  his  work  was  done  ; 
but  the  hardest  task  was  before  him.  The  mul- 
[23G] 


THE   HITHER   SIDE.  237 

titude  was  there  ;  but  it  was  a  vast,  uncouth  muss 
of  humanity,  debased  by  the  curse  of  slavery, 
under  which  it  had  long  groaned  ;  and  de- 
pended on  him  almost  as  a  babe  depends  on  its 
mother,  for  the  future.  Moses  feels  what  a  deep 
responsibility  rests  upon  him,  —  how  fearfully 
he  must  fail  if  this  movement  is  a  failure,  and 
what  a  glory  will  rest  on  his  success  if  he  suc- 
ceeds. The  solemn  issue  fills  his  heart  with  a 
great  longing  to  know  what  it  will  be.  So,  with 
the  simple  trust  of  a  man  who  believes  that  this 
issue  is  already  as  good  as  settled  in  the  counsels 
of  the  Eternal,  he  cries,  "  I  beseech  thee,  show 
me  thy  glory." 

And  I  have  taken  the  text,  because  it  seems 
to  'me  that  this  is  always  the  longing  of  the 
responsible  human  soul,  conscious  that  this 
life  is  welded  into  that  which  is  to  come.  It 
is  true  that  there  are  men  who  contrive  to  live 
on  a  semi-animal  plane,  who  never  feel  this 
hunger  to  know  the  secret  of  the  glory  of  life 
and  God ;  but  that  is  because  the  soul  is 
dormant,  curled  in  upon  itself.  And  so,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  are  a  few  who  have  come 
to  where  this  man  stood  forty  years  after,  when 


238  THE    HITHER  SIDE. 

he  was  on  the  mountain  alone;  the  wilderness 
behind  him,  the  land  of  promise  before ;  and 
he  rested  at  last  with  God,  —  men  who  sweep 
such  mighty  spaces  in  the  spiritual  heavens,  and 
yet  feel  such  a  nearness  to  God  on  earth  and  in 
life,  that  they  are  satisfied :  they  have  seen  the 
Father,  and  it  sumceth  them.  But  many  of  us, 
I  trust,  are  not  down  so  low  as  the  lowest  of 
those ;  and  I  know  that  most  of  us  are  not  yet 
lifted  into  that  great  place  with  the  highest.  We 
are  simply  where  this  man  was  when  he  uttered 
his  prayer,  —  at  the  hither  side  of  what  we  are  to 
do  and  to  be.  Life  stretches  out  into  the  dim 
distance  before  us ;  and  we  feel  that  God  is 
with  us,  though  we  cannot  see  him ;  that  our 
life  in  the  future  is  in  his  hand,  while  we  cannot 
know  what  it  will  bring.  We  know  that  the 
cloud  certainly  has  a  silver  lining ;  but  the  dark 
side  is  what  turns  most  frequently  toward  us,  and 
we  long  so  much  to  see  the  silver.  We  say  in 
our  hearts,  "  If  I  could  but  grasp  this  idea  of  what 
I  am  and  what  I  may  be,  my  real  relation  to  this 
life  and  to  God,  in  all  its  fulness,  —  then,  I  think, 
there  would  be  such  an  ever-present  radiance  with 
me,  that  I  could  never  doubt,  or   grow  weary. 


THE    HITHER   SIDE.  239 

My  life  would  rise  and  swell  into  such  full  confi- 
dence as  is  only  known  to  those  that  dwell  where 
the  Lord  God  is  the  light.  I  beseech  thee,  show 
me  thy  glory." 

The  young  man  in  some  way  utters  this  cry 
as  he  enters  upon  his  separate  and  responsible 
life,  if  he  has  any  fair  comprehension  of  what 
it  is  to  be  a  man.  In  New  England,  you  shall 
watch  him,  a  child  in  his  home,  —  a  tiny  frag- 
ment of  mirth  and  mischief,  no  more  con- 
scious of  or  caring  for  the  future  than  the  bird 
that  pours  out  its  song  in  the  old  apple-tree 
fast  by  his  chamber  window.  But  the  years 
sweep  on  in  their  wonderful,  silent  certainty. 
Childhood  opens  into  youth.  The  school  and  col- 
lege set  their  mark  on  his  forehead,  and  he  stands 
at  last  on  the  verge  of  his  manhood,  in  that  first 
prime,  beautiful  in  the  innocent  as  the  first 
bloom  on  the  grape.  Watch  him  then :  he  can 
no  more  stay  in  the  old  home,  than  Noah  could 
stay  in  the  old  ark.  when  he  knew  the  earth  was 
blossoming  ami  waiting  for  him  after  the  Flood. 
But,  as  he  longs  to  go,  —  I  speak  from  my  own 
experience, —  there  are  moments  when  this  hun- 
ger for  some  revelation  of  what  his  life  will  be 


240  THE    HITHER    SIDE. 

grows  almost  into  a  pain  ;  when  he  feels,  that  one 
flash,  clear  through,  would  be  worth  a  year  of 
living.  It  is  then  that  his  soul  wrestles  with 
God,  cries  out  to  him,  "  I  beseech  thee,  show 
me  thy  glory."  Let  me  see  whether  I  shall  be 
like  a  tree  planted  by  the  rivers  of  water,  or 
a  mere  stick  left  in  the  sand  by  the  receding 
tide. 

The  young  man  and  maiden  stand  with  their 
hands  clasped  together,  looking  onward  to  that 
time,  when  the  revelation  they  have  made  each  to 
the  other  shall  be  made  openly  to  the  world, 
and  they  shall  be,  for  ever  after,  man  and  wife. 
It  is  a  wonder  of  happiness,  as  they  stand  there 
and  look  through  the  golden  gates,  down  the 
long  vista,  from  this  first  prime  to  that  day  when 
they  shall  be  old  and  gray-headed,  and  gather 
up  their  feet  and  die.  But  then,  after  that, 
comes  the  longing  to  know  what  this  life  they 
are  to  live  will  be.  It  is  with  them  as  it  was  with 
the  man  Moses  :  the  very  sacredness  of  this  life  to 
come  makes  them  anxious  about  its  unfolding. 
"  What  if  I  should  fail  to  be  what  I  now  seem  to 
be?  If  poverty  should  come  in  at  the  door, 
and   love   fly  out   a1    th  i    window  ?      If  one  of 


THE   HITHER   SIDE.  241 

us  should  die,  or  if  in  any  way  this  fair  morning 
should  bring  a  noon  of  black  cloud-banks  and 
a  night  of  storm  and  sorrow  ?  In  doubling  my 
chances  of  blessedness,  I  am  doubling  my  chances 
of  wretchedness.  The  divine  balances  never  kick 
the  beam."  It  is  when  the  man  and  woman  feel 
so  deeply  this  meaning  that  these  questionings 
come ;  and,  as  they  rise  and  press  on  the  soul, 
they  are  this  cry  of  the  man  to  God,  "  I  beseech 
thee,  show  me  thy  glory." 

Life  sweeps  on  again,  and  the  father  and 
mother  bend  over  their  first-born  ;  that  wonderful 
new  testament  from  God  out  of  heaven,  the 
holiest  and  most  beautiful  thing  to  them  this 
world  ever  held.  They  watch  it  as  the  lights  and 
shadows  ripple  over  the  face,  and  the  smile 
comes  and  goes  that  has  so  constantly  suggested 
the  nearer  presence  of  the  angels  ;  and,  as  they 
watch,  they  wonder  what  will  be  the  fruitage  of 
this  folded  soul.  Here  is  a  life  with  them,  and 
theirs  that  can  never  end. 

"  The  little  lids  now  folded  fast,  — 
They  most  learn  to  drop  at  last 

Our  bitter,  burning  tears; 
That  small,  frail  being,  singly  stand 

At  God's  right  hand, 
Lifting  up  those  sleeping  eyes, 
Dilated  with  great  destinies." 
11 


242  THE   HITHER   SIDE. 

They  have  the  power,  in  their  measure,  to 
mould  this  life  into  the  image  of  God,  or  to 
brand  it  with  the  mark  of  the  beast ;  and  the 
awfulncss  of  their  trust  rises  before  them,  as 
the  future  of  Israel  rose  before  Moses  in  the 
wilderness.  Father,  mother,  child,  they  can 
never  be  separate.  First  it  was  one  life,  then 
two ;  now  three  mingle  together,  never  again 
to  be  severed,  father,  mother,  and  child,  now 
and  for  ever.  No  wonder  that  they  long  to  know 
what  will  be  the  destiny  of  their  trust,  —  the 
glory  of  God  in  this  gift  that  he  has  sent  them. 
If  they  could  see  that,  they  could  live  for  ever 
content ;  and,  with  one  heart  and  voice,  they  cry, 
"  We  beseech  thee,  show  us  thy  glory." 

There  are  those,  again,  who  feel  after  this  rev- 
elation upon  their  common  life.  There  is  a 
school  of  writers  and  thinkers,  —  at  the  head 
of  which,  in  his  lifetime,  stood  Mr.  Thackeray, 
—  who,  getting  on  into  middle  life,  are  led  to 
cry  out  mournfully,  that  life  has  lost  its  glow 
and  glory,  —  has  settled  into  a  jog-trot  jobless- 
ness ;  that  their  poetry  sounds  just  like  prose, 
and  commonplace  is  written  over  the  portals  of 
every  day. 


THE   HITHER   SIDE.  243 

Yet  these  men  will  never  tire  of  telling  you 
what  life  used  to  be  when  they  were  young, 
what  it  was  to  find  the  first  bird's-nest  and  snow- 
drop in  the  spring,  to  go  on  summer  picnics,  to 
have  the  first  slcigh-ride,  to  keep  Thanksgiving 
in  the  old  home,  to  receive  certain  letters,  and  to 
enter  a  certain  parlor.  Nay,  in  more  tender 
moods,  they  can  tell  you  what  it  was  to  kneel 
down  before  our  Father,  and  have  no  more  doubt 
of  his  listening,  than  they  had  of  the  mother's 
listening,  on  whose  knees  their  hands  were  resting, 
of  a  time  when  they  believed  heaven  was  only 
a  little  ways  out  through  the  blue,  and  the 
sister,  who  had  gone,  looked  and  talked  pre- 
cisely as  she  had  done  on  earth.  But  now  they 
wear  their  rue  with  a  difference.  This  bloom 
has  gone,  and  they  hold  on  for  sheer  duty. 
They  find  that  their  life  has  twisted  itself  into 
others  past  all  unloosing.  They  cannot  choose 
not  to  be  what  they  are.  "  To  be,  or  not  to 
be,"  is  not  the  question.  They  must  be,  and 
be  steady  and  strong  too,  for  the  sake  of  others, 
if  for  nothing  else.  But  what  a  difference  would 
come  to  their  living,  if  with  that  life  in  their 
youth,  that  was   fresh    every    morning   and   re 


244  THE   HITHER   SIDE. 

newed  every  evening,  they  could  mingle  this 
experience  of  their  age,  that  seems  to  have  driven 
it  out !  and  that  longing,  when  it  comes,  is  this 
cry,  "  I  beseech  thee,  show  me  thy  glory." 

Finally,  in  these  days  the  patriot  watches  for 
a  revelation  of  this  glory  on  the  nation.  Inevi- 
table, irresistible  as  the  sweep  of  a  planet,  the 
mighty  storm  of  war  has  smitten  us,  —  routed  us 
out  of  our  old  resting-places ;  and  God  has  said 
to  us,  as  he  said  to  Moses,  "  Get  thee  out,  thou 
and  thy  people."  Surely  this  old  Hebrew  did  not 
strive  harder  than  we  have  done  to  stay  where  he 
was ;  not  to  go  out  at  the  bidding  of  the  Lord ; 
to  be  quiet,  and  let  an  infernal  institution  alone  ; 
to  hold  on  to  our  mutton,  and  milk,  and  wool. 
But  it  is  the  everlasting  alternative  set  before 
every  great  people,  —  the  Red  Sea  and  the  wild- 
erness, a  baptism  of  fear  and  fire  ;  then  absolute 
obedience  to  God,  and  then  at  last  victory,  and 
the  rest  that  remains,  —  or  a  peace  purchased 
at  a  price  that  would  make  us  a  by-word  and 
a  hissing  among  the  nations,  and  our  future  a 
blackness  of  darkness  for  ever.  Thank  God 
that  we  have  known  the  day  of  our  visitation, 
have  found  that  we  can  only  be  in  the  line  of 


THE   HITHER   SIDE.  245 

providence  through  the  Red  Sea  and  the  wilder- 
ness. But  then  the  tremendous  interests  at 
stake  touch  us  with  this  longing  to  know  what  is 
finally  to  come  of  it.  The  cry  comes  up  to  God 
from  the  nation,  "  I  beseech  thee,  show  me  thy 
glory." 

And  so  it  is  everywhere  with  the  deeper  heart : 
always  we  want  to  see  the  other  from  the 
hither  side.  Wherever  a  young  man  has  left 
his  home,  to  enter  the  battle  of  life  ;  or  a  young 
man  and  maiden  have  said  the  most  sacred 
word  we  ever  say  to  each  other ;  or  a  father  and 
mother  look  into  the  face  of  their  first-born ;  or 
a  weary  man  holds  on  steady  and  true,  not  so 
much  for  himself,  as  for  others ;  or  the  patriot 
looks  wistfully  at  the  great  multitude  heaving 
and  struggling,  with  the  thunder  of  Sinai  above, 
the  great  desert  before,  and  the  promised  land 
only  in  the  far  distance,  —  this  to  me  is  the  inter- 
pretation of  that  cry  out  of  the  soul,  "  I  beseech 
thee,  show  me  thy  glory." 

Now  to  all  this  comes  the  answer  of  God : 
"  This  cannot  be,  for  that  would  be  death.  Such 
a  revelation  as  you  are  crying  for,  instead  of 


246  THE   HITHER   SIDE. 

being  the  inspiration,  would  be  the  destruction, 
of  the  life  I  have  given  you." 

And  I  conceive  a  possible  answer  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  thing  itself.  Is  it  so  universal,  this 
mist  on  the  track  ?  Then  it  must  be  right.  I 
might  make  sure  of  that,  without  any  appeal, 
except  to  common  human  sense,  and  grace.  The 
old  pious  conclusion,  that  what  is  universal  must 
be  best,  is  as  good  here  as  anywhere.  It  cannot 
be,  that  corn  and  trees  are,  as  a  rule,  all  right ; 
and  men  and  women,  all  wrong.  If  it  were  bet- 
ter that  we  should  see  clear  through,  from  the 
hither  to  the  other  side,  then  to  see  would  be 
the  rule ;  and  only  not  to  see,  the  exception.  No 
doctrine  can  be  more  divine,  did  we  know  it, 
than  this  of  the  fitness  of  things,  —  the  essential 
harmony  of  the  world  and  life  with  some  vast 
purpose  of  the  Maker.  God  is  righteous  (right 
wise)  in  all  his  ways.  I  do  not  envy  either  the 
philosophy  or  the  faith,  that  can  give  evil  such  a 
dreadful  advantage  over  good,  as  to  concede  to  it 
any  power  beyond  what  pleases  God.  And  no 
dilemma  in  the  doctrine  that  this  is  the  best  pos- 
sible world,  can  ever  be  so  cruel  as  that  which 
follows  for  ever,  steady  as  its  own  shadow,  the 
doctrine  that  it  is  the  worst. 


THE   HITHER   SIDE.  247 

Then  really,  this  is  the  way  in  which  I  act 
toward  my  own  children.  I  never  tell  them  all 
the  secrets  of  my  intention  toward  them,  be- 
cause a  certain  instinct  I  can  never  overpass  tells 
me  some  reserve  is  better.  If  my  son  should 
come  to  me,  as  he  started  out  in  life,  and  say, 
"  Father,  I  want  to  know  the  uttermost  you  mean 
to  do  for  me  under  any  circumstances ;  then, 
when  I  know  how  good  you  are,  I  shall  not  only 
be  more  content,  but  what  I  do  will  be  done  with 
more  inspiration.  I  shall  love  you  more,  and 
serve  you  better,  because  you  are  so  generous." 
I  should  count  it  a  great  misfortune  to  have  the 
lad  talk  like  that;  and  if  I  did  so  reveal  all 
my  purposes,  and  he  should  be  ever  so  dutiful,  I 
could  never  be  sure  that  this  was  not  dictated 
quite  as  much  by  the  greed  of  what  was  to  come, 
as  by  the  love  that  springs  out  of  our  relation 
as  father  and  son, — what  I  am  now  to  him, 
and  what  he  is  to  me ;  and  so  the  whole  tenor  of 
his  life  after  that,  in  the  shy  springs  and  roots 
of  it,  would  seem  to  be  touched  with  the  chill  of 
death. 

Then  it  is  grander  and  holier  not  to  know,  yet 
to  be  high  and  pure  all  the  same,  walking  by 
faith,  and  not  by  sight. 


248  THE   HITHER   SIDE. 

What  makes  the  difference  in  our  estimate 
of  the  first  captain  that  ever  sailed  to  these  shores, 
and  the  man  who  brings  his  ship  into  port  this 
morning  ?  To  the  one,  the  reverence  of  all  men 
will  be  given ;  but,  to  the  other,  hardly  a  second 
thought.  The  difference  is  this,  of  seeing  and  not 
seeing.  The  one  starts  on  his  dim  and  perilous 
way,  breaking  through  league  after  league  of 
trackless  waters,  and  through  the  doubt  and  fear 
that  is  all  about  him  in  the  ship.  He  has  not 
received  the  promise,  has  not  really  seen  it 
afar  off ;  but  it  is  no  matter :  the  man  holds  fast 
to  the  hope  set  before  him ;  and  that  keeps  him 
steady,  until  at  last  his  quest  is  found.  But  the 
captain  who  enters  the  harbor  this  morning 
knows  what  Columbus  only  believed.  He  has 
seen  the  end,  as  far  as  mortal  can  see  that  from 
the  hither  side.  At  noon  or  night,  whenever  he 
would  look  westward,  here  was  the  land  standing 
in  the  sun ;  it  was  all  plain  sailing,  well  done 
by  a  common  man,  without  any  deep  emotion, 
or  struggle  or  victory,  except  over  wind  and 
storm. 

But,  once  more,  there  is  stronger  reason  in 
the   fact,  that   what   the  man  cries    out   for    is 


THE    HITHER    SIDE.  249 

not  so  much  something  to  see,  as  something  to  be  ; 
and,  until  he  is  one  with  the  glory,  he  cannot  see 
it.  There  is  a  wonderful  suggestivencss  in  this 
story,  when  you  get  at  the  heart  of  it.  From 
the  time  the  cry  is  uttered,  forty  years  come  and 
go,  bringing  ever  new  labor,  and  mostly  sorrow. 
Now  he  seems  to  be  going  backward,  now  for- 
ward ;  from  the  sea  to  the  Jordan,  from  the  Jor- 
dan to  the  sea.  Working,  watching,  weeping, 
praying,  but  never  utterly  broken  down,  he  be- 
comes at  last  an  intimate  part  of  the  glory 
he  longed  for.  Then  he  does  not  ask  for  the 
revelation  he  cannot  choose,  but  have  it  because 
he  is  in  it. 

Now,  friend,  does  life  go  hard  with  you,  and 
this  longing  come  painfully  over  you,  consider 
whether  this  may  not  also  be  your  experience. 
What  moment  is  the  highest  in  the  life  of  the 
Master?  Is  it  when  the  angels  come,  or  when 
the  voice  is  heard  out  of  the  cloud ;  or  when 
multitudes  follow  him,  shouting  "  Hosaima ;  "  or 
when  great  floods  of  life  pour  from  him  to  refresh 
the  faint  and  sick  and  broken-hearted  ?  Believe 
me,  not  one  of  these,  but  that  moment  when,  in 
all  the  universe,  he  felt  he  was  alone ;  that  even 


250  THE    HITHEE   SIDE. 

God  had  forsaken  him ;  and  yet  was  equal  to  the 
dreadful  demand,  and  led  captivity  captive. 

The  solution  of  the  problem  turns  on  one  thing 
only.  As  I  stand  here,  looking  wistfully  onward, 
longing  for  the  light,  crying  for  the  glory,  am 
I  able  to  step  out  in  time  with  what  is  demanded 
of  me  as  a  man  ?  When  I  have  answered  that 
question,  I  have  answered  all.  God  will  see  to 
the  rest.  There  can  be  no  fear  but  my  life  will 
pass  into  the  ever-nearing  glory  ;  and,  in  the 
fulness  of  time,  I  am  sure  to  receive  the  full  rev- 
elation. 

Here  we  are  as  the  earth  in  the  winter,  and 
we  cry  out  for  the  summer.  Did  you  ever 
think  how  certainly  the  summer  comes  ?  The 
earth  wheels  onward  through  the  awful  spaces. 
We  might  imagine  she  would  get  adrift,  or  not 
set  herself  to  the  time,  and  so  we  might  lose 
our  summer.  But  steadily  she  turns  to  the  sun 
when  her  time  comes,  and  the  glory  breaks  upon 
her,  according  to  the  promise.  So  at  last  she 
comes  down  from  God,  out  of  heaven,  like  a 
bride  adorned  for  her  wedding. 

I  get  sick  sometimes  at  my  poor,  halting  faith,  as 
I  see  how  constantly  God  will  remind  me  of  the 


THE   HITHER   SIDE.  251 

certainty  of  his  presence;  how  even  inanimate 
nature,  as  I  call  it,  thrills  and  pulses  with  this  ever 
present  helpfulness,  toward  the  glory  that  shall  be 
revealed.  As  I  did  some  little  matter  among  my 
plants  yesterday,  I  noticed,  when  one  delicate 
shoot  seemed  to  suffer  from  the  sun,  a  leaf  on  the 
same  stem  came  over,  and  covered  it  a  little  with 
its  shadow.  I  tried  to  turn  it  back ;  but  there 
was  no  shadow  of  turning.  I  could  break  it  or 
fetter  it,  or  inflict  some  other  outrage  on  it ;  but 
I  could  not  alter  its  will  to  succor  that  mite  of 
a  bud,  and  defend  it  from  the  sun ;  because  it 
was  as  the  wing  of  an  angel,  and  its  law  and 
order  as  deep  and  sure  as  the  law  that  holds  the 
planets  in  their  mighty  harmony.  Then,  as  I  saw 
this,  I  said  in  my  heart,  "  0  my  Father !  let  me 
learn  from  this  leaf,  if  I  will  not  be  taught  by 
thy  Spirit,  how  the  whole  creation  witnesses  to 
the  certainty  of  the  coming  glory.  Surely  if  in 
this  blind,  dumb  thing,  there  can  be  such  faithful- 
ness to  the  flowering ;  if  this  leaf  can  be  as  an 
angel,  to  guard  and  shelter  the  one  purpose,  — 
how  much  more  shall  I  find,  that  the  man,  the 
most  perfect  flower  of  God,  is  guarded  and 
guided,   through   the  dark  night  and  the  fierce 


252  THE   HITHER   SIDE. 

noon,  to  the  full  time  when  he  shall  unfold  to 
the  eternal  beauty  to  which  he  was  destined  in 
his  creation.     For  — 

"  There's  not  a  flower  can  grow  upon  the  earth, 
Without  a  flower  upon  the  spiritual  side: 
All  that  we  see  is  pattern  of  what  shall  be  in  the  mount, 
Related  royally,  and  built  up  to  eterne  significance. 

There's  nothing  small : 
No  lily,  muffled  hum  of  summer  bee, 
But  finds  its  coupling  in  the  spinning  stars; 
No  pebble  at  your  foot  but  proves  a  sphere ; 
No  chaffinch  but  implies  a  cherubim. 

Earth  is  full  of  heaven, 
And  every  common  bush  a  fire  with  God." 

Young  man,  standing  on  the  hither  side,  ready 
to  start,  and  wondering  what  glory  life  will  bring, 
believe  me,  it  will  bring  all  you  can  possibly  use 
or  deserve,  in  God's  own  good  time.  What  is 
most  essential  as  you  stand  there  is,  that  you  put 
heart  and  life  into  an  honest  and  high  endeavor. 
Trust  in  God  as  Moses  did,  let  the  way  be  ever 
so  dark,  and  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  your 
life  at  last  shall  surpass  even  your  longing ;  not, 
it  may  be,  in  the  line  of  that  longing,  that 
shall  be  as  it  pleases  God,  but  the  glory  is  as 
sure  as  the  grace  ;  and  the  most  ancient  heavens 
are  not  more  sure  than  that. 

Man    and   woman,   standing  in    the   presenco 


THE   HITHER   SIDE.  -■'■'< 

of  your  first  true  love,  do  not  fear  any  thing 
that  love  can  bring.  Passion  might  fly  out  of  the 
window  when  poverty  conies  in  at  the  door ;  but 
love  will  stand  by  you  while  life  holds  on,  and 
then  it  will  plume  its  wings,  and  go  with  you  into 
the  eternal  life. 

Father  and  mother,  longing  to  know  what  your 
babe  will  be,  it  is  most  likely,  if  you  did  know, 
the  very  knowledge  would  interfere  fatally  with 
the  divine  intention.  Only  Mary  seems  to  have 
known  any  thing  about  the  glory,  that  like  a  star 
shone  on  the  cradle  of  her  son ;  and  she  could 
not  understand  it  any  more  than  the  rest.  You 
would  be  so  appalled  at  the  way  he  must  go,  the 
Sinai  and  the  wilderness,  the  sorrow  and  pain ; 
or  so  blinded  by  the  glory  that  will  come  when 
he  has  taken  his  own  place,  —  that,  in  either  case, 
you  would  be  totally  unfit  for  the  simple  duties 
and  cares,  small  and  poor  as  they  would  then 
seem,  on  which  every  thing  under  God  depends. 

Man  in  middle  life,  to  whom  life  is  hard  and 
dry,  whose  cry  is  sometimes,  "  0  that  I  had  wings 
like  a  dove!  then  would  I  flee  away,  and  be  at 
rest," — I  doubt  very  seriously  whether  fleeing 
would  do  it.     When  Bierstadt  wanted  to  get  the 


254  THE    HITHER   SIDE. 

glory  of  the  Yo  Semite  into  his  canvas,  he  did 
not  retire  to  his  chamber  and  read  about  it,  re- 
clining on  velvet  and  sipping  nectar ;  but  went 
out,  over  the  plains,  through  the  wilderness, 
through  hardship  and  danger,  into  the  heart  of 
the  glory ;  and  watched  and  waited,  day  after 
day,  if  he  might  but  see  the  skirts  of  the  robe  in 
which  it  was  clad.  And  lo !  he  saw  the  glory ; 
and  it  folded  him  in  and  was  all  about  him,  like 
the  breath  of  life. 

It  is  so  that  we  must  come  to  the  sense  of  the 
deepness  of  the  blessing  of  the  life  we  live.  Go 
into  the  heart  of  it,  at  whatever  labor  and  pain  ; 
enter  mightily  into  its  duties  ;  watch  not  for  its 
shadow  alone,  as  these  complainers  do,  but  most 
of  all  for  its  light,  and  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that 
you  shall  find  at  last  in  your  hearts  what  the 
painter  found  at  last  in  his  canvas,  as  much  glory 
as  will  fill  them  full  of  a  radiance  that  will  bless 
wherever  it  shines. 

Patriot,  watching  for  the  redemption  of  the 
nation  from  its  fetters  and  sins,  —  I  bid  you  re- 
member, that,  in  this  old  history,  one  thing  is 
exalted  above  all.  It  is  not  the  power  of  David, 
the  glory  of  Solomon,  the  reformation  of  Samuel 


THE   HITHER   SIDE.  255 

or  Nehcmiah :  it  is  this  forty  years'  struggle 
through  the  wilderness,  to  which  all  look  back 
in  the  after-time  as  the  period  when  God  came 
nearest,  and  his  glory  shone  most  gloriously ;  of 
which  the  very  relics  were  kept  most  religiously, 
and  the  most  awful  days  became  national  holi- 
days. We  may  well  thank  God,  and  take  cour- 
age, and  march  on,  when  we  know  that  the  pillars 
of  cloud  by  day  and  of  fire  by  night  are  set  fast 
in  the  divine  order,  to  guide  us  on  the  way. 
Perfect  peace  will  come  at  last,  and  order  and 
joy ;  and  the  glory  has  come  through  the  thick 
darkness  already  when  we  rest  in  the  promise 
of  God.  Let  us  all  be  sure,  that  all  is  well  what- 
ever comes,  while  we  trust,  and  stand  fast,  and 
strive  ;  and  only  hopeless,  and  rightly  hopeless, 
when  we  want  what  we  are  in  no  wise  willing 
to  earn.  The  glory  and  glow  of  life  come  by 
right  living ;  for  in  that  "  we  all,  beholding  as 
in  a  glass  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  shall  be  changed 
into  the  same  image,  from  glory  to  glory,  as  by 
the  spirit  of  the  Lord." 


XIV. 

THE  BOOK  OF  PSALMS. 

Luke  xx.  42:  "  The  Book  of  Psalms." 

The  Book  of  Psalms,  and  not  the  Psalms  of 
David,  is  the  most  appropriate  title.  David  is 
the  author  of  a  good  many  of  the  pieces ;  but  he 
is  only  one  of  ten  or  perhaps  twelve  authors,  who 
have  a  share  in  the  entire  collection.  The  par- 
ticular process  by  which  the  book  came  to  assume 
its  present  form  has  passed  out  of  all  memory  and 
history.  It  is  probable,  that  long  ago  there 
were  at  least  five  collections  of  Psalms,  and  that 
they  were  finally  all  brought  together,  and  cast 
into  one,  very  much  as  our  collections  of  Hymns 
for  the  church  service  are  made  now.  The 
Masorah,  school  of  criticism  among  the  Jews, — 
one  object  of  which  was  to  keep  a  jealous  eye  on 
the  outward  letter  of  their  Bible,  to  count  the 
books,  words,  and  even  letters  of  which  it  is  com- 

[256] 


THE    BOOK    OF    PSALMS.  257 

posed,  —  has  preserved  fcke  division  lines  of  those 
minor  books  of  Psalms.  The  same  thing  has 
been  done  in  the  Syriac  Version,  a  very  old  trans- 
lation from  the  Hebrew.  It  is  also  probable,  that 
the  editor  had  the  trouble  such  men  have  now. 
St.  Athanasius  has  preserved  the  tradition,  that 
tlie  present  selection  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
v  as  made  out  of  three  thousand  Psalms,  that 
were  at  that  time  getting  themselves  said  and 
sung  on  the  hills  and  in  the  valleys  of  old  Jewry  ; 
from  which  we  may  infer,  that  bad  verse  and 
pretended  inspiration  is  by  no  means  the  result  of 
modern  degeneracy.  Who  this  devoted  man  was, 
is  not  at  all  certain :  some  say  Hezekiah  ;  some, 
Ezrah.  Others  say  that  it  must  have  been  an 
unknown  man  of  a  later  time,  as  some  of  the 
Psalms  bear  marks  of  having  been  written  as  late 
as  the  age  of  the  Maccabees,  or  about  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  before  Christ,  and  two  hundred 
and  fifty  after  the  last  of  the  Prophets.  The 
Jews  themselves  assert  that  the  92d  Psalm  was 
written  by  Adam;  the  89th,  by  Abraham;  the 
110th  by  Melchizedek  ;  the  90th  and  ten  follow- 
ing, by  Moses.  Seventy-one  are  given  to  David, 
(some   manuscripts   give   him   eighty-two) ;    the 


258  THE   BOOK   OF   PSALMS. 

72d  and  127th,  to  Solomon ;  and  the  rest,  to 
writers  whose  names  yon  will  not  care  to  know. 

This  classification,  however,  will  not  bear 
criticism :  the  text  itself,  in  some  of  the  Psalms, 
makes  it  impossible.  For  instance,  the  Psalm 
attributed  to  Abraham  makes  frequent  mention 
of  David.  Other  and  better  systems,  in  later 
times,  keep  these  elder  men  out  of  the  book 
entirely,  and  make  Moses  the  oldest  writer  whose 
poems  are  admitted.  This  is  probably  true,  or  as 
near  as  we  shall  ever  be  to  the  truth  on  this 
matter.  Moses,  David,  Solomon,  and  seven 
obscurer  men,  answer  to  our  call,  when  we  say 
who  are  the  authors  of  the  Book  of  Psalms. 

Then  to  come  to  the  inner  structure  of 
the  book,  we  may  perceive  that  this  editor  has 
only  been  moderately  careful  in  the  performance 
of  his  task.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  rough  sort 
of  harmony  in  which  David  has  a  section  to 
himself.  Then  David  has  a  share  of  a  section 
with  Asaph ;  then  Asaph  and  others  join  at  a 
third ;  and  the  fourth  and  fifth  are  by  authors 
whose  names  are  not  known.  But,  by  some 
strange  oversight,  the  Psalms  14th  and  53d  are 
almost  exactly  alike :  with  the  exception  of  a  few 


THE   BOOK   OF   PSALMS.  259 

words  in  one  verse,  they  are  the  same  Psalms. 
The  last  five  verses  of  Psalm  40th  are  precisely 
the  same  as  the  five  verses  that  compose  Psalm 
70th.  Psalm  18th  is  the  same  as  the  22d  chapter 
of  the  second  book  of  Samuel ;  while  the  144th 
Psalm  is  made  up  out  of  a  mosaic  of  verses, 
selected  from  the  8th,  18th,  39th,  102d,  and  some 
other  Psalms,  —  the  8th  and  11th  verses  of  this 
Psalm  being  also  the  same  verse  repeated,  and  the 
whole  composition  standing  without  any  percepti- 
ble harmony  of  verse  to  verse,  or  any  relation  of 
ideas  each  to  the  other. 

Then,  again,  a  number  of  the  Psalms  are  writ- 
ten as  you  would  write  an  acrostic :  each  verse 
begins  with  a  particular  letter  of  the  Hebrew 
alphabet,  from  the  first  to  the  last.  The  long 
Psalm  119th  is  one  of  those,  except  that,  in  the 
the  monkish  division  of  the  Bible,  the  alphabetic 
section  is  subdivided  into  eight  verses.  The 
145th  Psalm  is  another  in  which  the  acrostic 
form  has  been  broken  up  by  one  verse  being  lost, 
—  that  is,  the  one  set  to  the  fifteenth  letter, — 
but  restored  from  some  old  manuscript  since  our 
common  version  got  to  be  canonized.  Finally, 
one  or  two  other  Psalms  are  the  substantial  re- 


260  THE   BOOK   OF   PSALMS. 

petition  of  the  one  thing,  that  any  two  versions 
of  a  poem  from  the  French  or  German  would  be, 
when  it  was  rendered  into  our  own  tongue.  This 
is  the  outward  frame-work  of  the  book,  as  it 
stands,  subjected  to  the  honest  eye-sight  we  give 
to  any  other  book,  —  a  selection  of  sacred  poems, 
from  a  great  mass,  written  during  a  range  of 
years  that  would  include  the  reign  of  Alfred  the 
Great  and  the  presidency  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
containing  marks  of  carelessness  that  would  ruin 
the  reputation  of  any  editor  in  our  own  time ; 
with  no  particular  certainty  about  the  authorship, 
or  when  the  book  was  collected,  or  who  did  it,  or 
when  men  pronounced  it  of  such  divine  authority, 
or  who  authorized  them  to  do  so,  and  whether 
some  of  the  best  among  the  two  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  fifty  rejected  Psalms  ought  not  to 
have  been  retained,  at  any  rate  in  preference  to 
those  that  are  twice  printed. 

Now,  then,  here  is  a  most  interesting  study : 
all  nations  have  grown  into  poetry  as  soon  as  they 
began  to  grow  into  any  thing  above  the  common- 
est life  of  the  moment.  But  this  book  of  poems 
has  taken  its  place  easily  and  beautifully  before 
and  over  the  home-poems  of  the  foremost  nations 


THE   BOOK    OF   PSALMS.  281 

on  the  globe.  The  Greek,  by  comparison,  has 
forgotten  his  Homer  and  Hesiod ;  the  Roman, 
those  first  poetic  utterances  out  of  which  Livy 
and  those  that  followed  him  drew  their  material 
for  the  beginnings  of  the  history  of  that  marvellous 
commonwealth.  The  sagas  of  Scandinavia,  and 
the  sacred  hymns  of  the  Druids,  have  all  gone 
into  night.  The  psalms  are  lost  that  sounded 
through  the  temple-services  and  palaces  and  cot- 
tages of  Egypt  and  Assyria.  Even  where  the 
sacred  poem  is  left,  the  meaning  is  dead,  or  all 
but  dead,  whether  it  be  to  the  disciple  of  Buddha 
or  Mahomet ;  while  here  is  a  book  of  poems, 
some  of  which  are  probably  as  old  as  the  oldest 
of  those  that  are  dying  or  dead,  as  fresh  and  wel- 
come as  ever.  If  I  could  have  stood  here  this 
morning,  and,  instead  of  my  sermon,  could  have 
told  you  that  I  had  come  into  the  possession  of  a 
wonderful  and  curious  literary  treasure,  that 
had  been  sent  to  me,  say  from  China,  —  a  book 
written  from  two  to  three  thousand  years  ago, — 
a  book  of  poems  by  different  authors,  ranging 
through  a  period  of  a  thousand  years,  in  which 
there  are  to  be  found  the  most  vivid  pictures  of 
life  in  that  old  time ;  the  writers,  with  the  sim- 


262  THE   BOOK   OF   PSALMS. 

plicity  of  children,  letting  you  look  into  their 
hearts,  so  that  by  looking,  you  learn  their  inner- 
most experiences  of  hope  and  fear,  sorrow  and 
joy,  struggle,  defeat,  and  victory,  their  thoughts 
of  life  and  death  in  its  almost  infinite  differences 
to  different  men  :  and  all  this  not  as  a  description 
of  a  life  they  stand  and  look  at,  but  a  life  in 
which  they  themselves  are  at  once  actors  and 
spokesmen,  as  much  as  if  Tennyson  had  been  in 
the  charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,  or  the  foremost 
actor  in  the  French  Revolution  had  written  the 
Marseillaise.  That  ever  since  those  poems  were 
written,  they  had  exerted  the  most  wonderful 
power  over  the  human  heart,  —  great  armies  had 
stood  bare-headed  to  sing  some  of  them  before 
great  battles,  and  knelt  down  to  repeat  others  after 
great  victories,  —  some  filling  out  the  aspirations 
of  the  loftiest  and  the  holiest  minds  with  words 
as  pure  as  their  purest  thought ;  others  express- 
ing the  deepest  penitence  of  the  most  degraded, 
—  alike  welcome  to  the  greatest  king  and  the 
poorest  beggars,  —  if  I  could  tell  you  this,  there 
would  be  but  one  thought  in  this  church.  Not 
one  of  you  but  would  say,  "  Above  all  books, 
I  desire  to  see  that,  and  to  get  at  the  heart 
of  it" 


THE   LOOK   OF   PSALMS.  263 

And  if  I  should  say  to  you,  "  Tell  me  what,  in 
your  estimation,  is  the  one  word  that  will  best 
express  the  quality  which  has  made  this  book 
what  it  is  to  all  those  different  men  and  times," 
you  would  answer,  "  That  word  is  inspiration  : 
the  poems  that  can  be  what  you  describe  are  in- 
spired, and  so  are  fountains  of  inspiration  for  that 
reason."  And  then,  if  I  should  say  to  you, 
'*  How  can  you  be  sure  of  this  ?  We  cannot  tell 
certainly  who  wrote  them ;  we  cannot  tell  when 
they  were  collected  ;  no  man  can  put  his  finger 
upon  the  time  or  place  when  the  book  was  first 
said  to  be  inspired ;  it  is  badly  put  together  ; 
some  poems  come  in  twice,  and  others  bear  marks 
of  the  most  mechanical  verse-grinding."  Your 
answer  would  be,  "  This  is  all  no  matter.  We 
should  love  to  know  who  were  the  authors ;  but 
they  would  gather  lustre  from  the  poems,  not  the 
poems  from  them.  It  is  no  matter  when  they 
were  collected  ;  the  fact  that  they  were  collected, 
and  staid  so,  is  the  most  significant ;  and,  if  two 
thousand  and  five  hundred  years  ago,  the  most 
notable  men  in  Jewry  had  written  in  letters  of 
gold  that  they  were  inspired,  and  the  tablet  were 
still  to  be  seen  among  the  treasures  of  the  Yati- 


264  THE   BOOK   OF  PSALMS. 

can,  that  were  nothing  to  this  seal  that  has  been 
set  to  their  inspiration  by  untold  millions  of  the 
race."  Here,  then,  is  the  first  principle  in  the 
inspiration  and  worth  of  the  Book  of  Psalms  to 
you  and  me.  Whatever  value  we  may  set  upon 
it,  there  is  that  property  in  it  which  I  have  illus- 
trated in  my  ideal  book  from  China,  —  perennial 
life  and  universal  adaptation.  Here  are  the  very 
words  that  have  sounded  over  the  wild  tumult  of 
the  battle,  and  dropped  lovingly  from  the  heart 
of  the  mother  bending  over  her  first-born,  hush- 
ing it  to  rest,  that  are  still  unexhausted  be- 
fore the  mightiest  power  of  organ  and  choir,  and 
yet  have  easily  folded  themselves  to  the  measure 
of  a  broken  voice  on  a  death-bed,  —  a  blessing  of 
inspired  utterance  which  Bacon  and  Milton  and 
Cowpcr  and  Burns  loved  to  set  to  the  measures 
of  our  sweet  English  tongue,  and  at  which  no 
sincere  heart  ever  came  to  drink,  and  went  away 
weary  and  unrcfreshed  ;  because  they  came  right 
out  of  the  human  soul,  and  go  straight  and  fast 
as  light,  and  high  as  God. 

I  do  not  forget,  of  course,  in  this  discussion, 
that  there  are  in  this  book  the  vindictive  Psalms 
that  have  so  sorely  puzzled  those  that  want  to 


THE   BOOK    CF   PSALMS.  265 

measure  the  Bible's  inspiration  by  mechanical 
rale,  and  stand  appalled,  therefore,  before  the 
terrible  fury  of  that  sentence:  "  Happy  shall  he 
be  that  taketh  thy  little  ones,  and  dasheth  them 
against  the  stones";  or  this,  —  "As  for  those 
that  compass  me  about,  let  burning  coals  fall 
upon  them ;  let  them  be  cast  into  the  fire,  into 
deep  pits,  from  which  they  cannot  rise  ;  "  or  this, 
"  My  enemy  has  rewarded  me  evil  for  good,  and 
given  me  hatred  for  my  love ;  therefore  let  his 
prayer  become  sin ;  let  his  children  be  fatherless 
and  beggars  and  vagabonds  for  ever ;  let  there  be 
none  that  will  have  mercy  upon  him,  or  upon  his 
fatherless  children  ;  let  the  iniquity  of  his  fathers 
be  remembered  ;  let  not  the  sin  of  his  mother  be 
blotted  out."  Now,  there  are  some  that  say, 
"  These  Psalms  are  a  great  mystery."  And  they 
try  to  explain  them  by  saying,  "  The  writer  was 
a  good  man  :  therefore  he  conld  not,  at  the  mo- 
ment when  he  wrote  these  sentences,  be  person- 
ally under  the  influence  of  those  feelings  ;  else  he 
could  not,  on  the  other  hand,  be  inspired  of  God. 
We  judge,  therefore,  that  he  uttered  these  words 
as  a  prophetic  foresight  of  what  these  men  would 
come  to,  and  not  what  he  wished  they  migJit  come 
10 


266  THE    BOOK   OF   PSALMS. 

to."  I  have  searched  through  all  sorts  of  books 
to  find  what  this  class  of  minds  have  to  offer  in 
explanation  of  these  awful  curses  ;  and  this  is  the 
best  that  I  can  find,  —  the  best,  I  believe,  that 
has  ever  been  written.  The  reply  to  the  whole 
matter  is  very  short.  We  say,  friends,  you  have 
a  right  to  your  own  opinions ;  but,  on  the  face  of 
these  Psalms,  there  is  but  one  meaning  to  plain 
men  ;  and  that  is,  that  they  are  stout,  solid,  com- 
pact cursing  ;  a  man  cursing  a  man,  —  and  that 
is  the  truth.  You  have  every  right  to  try  to  ex- 
plain them  away ;  but  it  is  like  biting  a  file,  at 
once  useless,  and  destructive  of  a  precious  gift 
of  God.  Your  trouble  rises  out  of  your  claim  of 
entire  inspiration  of  the  divine,  holy  spirit  through 
the  whole  book.  We  have  no  such  trouble,  be- 
cause we  make  no  such  claim.  We  claim  the  holy 
spirit  inspired  what  is  holy  and  pure  and  tender 
and  true,  beautiful  and  good,  and  manly  and 
womanly :  but  if  there  is  a  part  of  the  book  hard, 
unmerciful,  vindictive,  or  ungodly,  on  the  plain, 
wholesome  interpretation  of  those  terms  as  we 
live  by  them,  then  the  holy  spirit  did  not  inspire 
that,  but  the  unholy  spirit ;  and,  if  you  want 
scripture,  \  repeat  for  you  those  words  of  the 


THE   BOOK   OF   PSALMS.  267 

disciple,  "  Beloved,  believe  not  every  spirit ;  but 
try  the  spirits  whether  they  be  of  God."  It  is  a 
most  painful  instance  of  the  sad  result  of  consent- 
ing to  be  fettered  by  the  hard  rules  of  a  system, 
in  the  interpretation  of  that  book  which,  of 
all  others,  asks  for  a  clear  eye  and  a  free  soul, 
that  the  man  who  would  laugh  in  your  face 
if  you  told  him  that  the  same  spirit  inspired 
Burns  to  write  his  "  Cotter's  Saturday  Night," 
and  another  poem  which  I  must  not  even  men- 
tion, dare  not  question  whether  the  same  spirit 
inspired  the  109th  Psalm  and  the  12th  chap- 
ter of  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  To  be 
frank,  however,  it  is  but  right  to  say,  that  there 
are  conceivable  conditions  in  life,  when  these 
imprecations  become  natural :  when  the  poor  hu- 
manity, hunted  and  driven  into  a  very  insanity 
of  desperation,  will  take  to  this  as  the  last  effort 
at  self-defence  or  vengeance.  I  could  think  of 
that  slave-woman,  in  the  old  bad  time,  who  mur- 
dered her  children  to  prevent  them  from  being 
carried  back  to  their  doom,  using  exactly  such 
words ;  but  what  is  the  true  inspiration  of  such 
fearful  moments,  has  been  set  in  a  fastness  of 
light   for  all   to  see.     When  one  had   been  be- 


268  THE   BOOK   OF   PSALMS. 

trayed,  condemned  in  the  face  of  all  justice, 
scourged,  blinded,  mocked,  smitten,  spit  upon, 
and  crucified,  he  cried,  "  Father,  forgive  them : 
they  know  not  what  they  do." 

But,  again,  I  say  it  is  not  for  the  faults  or  de- 
formities of  this  book,  but  for  its  intrinsic  beauty 
and  truth,  that  the  human  heart  is  faithful  to 
it,  and  loves  it  with  such  an  enduring  love.  One 
great  strain  runs  through  almost  every  poem  ; 
namely,  that  this  material  universe,  and  this 
world  and  life,  is  not  the  mere  cunning  perform- 
ance of  a  great  upholsterer,  but  the  actual  ex- 
pression of  God.  Written  before  men  knew 
much  about  material  laws,  it  is  steady  to  the 
grand  idea  that  God  himself  is  the  Law ;  so  that 
whatever  of  terror  or  sublimity  or  beauty  could 
be  seen  in  nature,  whatever  of  light  and  darkness 
in  life,  was  interlinked  with  the  presence  and 
power  of  the  divine  spirit.  Then,  what  is  more, 
and  still  another  beauty  in  the  book,  is,  these 
ideas  had  been  on  fire  in  that  human  soul  out 
of  which  the  Psalm  sprang.  They  had  made  the 
man  sing ;  and  this  is  the  result  of  his  singing, 
set  to  a  music  that  is  all  aflame  with  the  beauty 
and  salt  of  truth.     Travellers  tell  us  what  a  deep 


THE   BOOK   OF   PSALMS.  209 

meaning  these  poems  gather,  when  you  come  to 
stand  in  the  very  scenes  where  they  were  written. 
The  great  multitude,  for  instance,  on  some  day 
of  high  worship,  stand  in  the  portico  of  the  tem- 
ple, and  witness  a  thunder-storm  come  sweeping 
up  from 'the  Mediterranean.  It  strikes  Lebanon, 
and  the  cedars  bend  and  break  in  the  tem- 
pest. It  drives  down  the  sides  of  Hermon,  roars 
through  the  wilderness,  and,  at  last,  breaks 
over  Jerusalem  in  great  torrents  of  rain.  Then 
the  sun  comes  out  again,  and  all  is  still.  But 
out  of  that  thunder-storm  there  has  come  a 
Psalm :  the  mantle  of  inspiration  has  fallen  on 
one  in  the  multitude,  and  the  29th  Psalm  pours 
from  his  heart,  —  not  as  men  sing  of  the  storm 
now ;  for  to  him  God  informs  and  fills  the  storm : 
"  The  voice  of  the  Lord  is  on  the  sea ;  the  God  of 
glory  thundereth ;  the  voice  of  the  Lord  breaketh 
the  cedars ;  the  voice  of  the  Lord  divideth  the 
fire ;  the  Lord  shaketh  the  wilderness  ;  the  Lord 
will  give  strength  to  his  people,  and  bless  them 
with  peace."  The  man  quivers  with  this  sense 
of  the  presence  of  God,  and  the  quiver  is  in  the 
poem  too.  The  poet-shepherd  follows  his  flock, 
guides  them,  defends  them,  seeks  out  new  pas- 


270  THE   BOOK   OF   PSALMS. 

tures,  takes  them  through  the  grim  passes  where 
the  wild  beast  lurks,  —  the  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death ;  he  never  for  a  moment  fails  of  his 
care  over  them ;  and  so,  at  last,  on  some  high 
day  of  the  soul,  —  perhaps  after  he  has  had  a 
hard  time,  defending  and  seeing  to  his  charge,  — 
he  fills  with  a  great  sense  of  his  own  relation  to 
God,  of  dependence  upon  one  above  Mm,  as  he  is 
above  the  flock ;  and  the  one  spark  has  lighted 
up  the  whole  beauty  of  the  analogy :  "  The  Lord 
is  my  shepherd :  /  shall  not  want.  He  maketh 
me  to  lie  down  in  green  pastures :  he  leadeth  me 
beside  the  still  waters.  Yea,  though  i*  walk 
through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  I  will 
fear  no  evil.  I  am  defended  :  my  Shepherd  has 
a  rod  and  a  staff.  Surely,  goodness  and  mercy 
shall  follow  me  all  the  days  of  my  life."  And  I 
wish  I  had  room  to  notice  a  number  more  of 
those  word-paintings,  where  some  piece  of  life  is 
at  once  made  to  shine  out  from  the  old,  dim  past, 
and  is  filled  with  the  presence  of  God.  There  is 
the  grand  picture  of  a  storm  at  sea ;  the  touching 
sketch  of  the  captives  sitting  under  the  willows  on 
the  banks  of  the  Euphrates ;  and  the  sad  wail  of 
the  poet,  —  far  from  the  temple  and  its  services, 


THE    BOOK    OF    PSALMS.  271 

envying  even  the  sparrow  and  swallow  building 
about  the  capitals,  —  for  the  rest  which  he  could 
never  find,  until  he  should  meet  again  with  the 
old  familiar  faces,  and  mingle  in  the  services,  — 
a  sort  of  lamentation  that  I  observe,  poets  seldom 
fall  into  any  more,  and  as  seldom  into  the  services 
out  of  which  it  sprung.  And  so  it  comes  to  pass, 
because  these  men  possessed  these  two  great  gifts, 
—  first,  that  intense  sympathy  and  oneness  with 
what  they  describe,  which  makes  their  description 
an  immortal,  spiritual  photograph  ;  and,  second, 
that  wonderful  realization  of  the  direct  presence 
and  agency  of  God,  by  which  they  are  able  to  say 
"  I  and  we,"  where  even  Milton  can  only  say  "  he 
and  they."  The  best  of  those  Psalms  have  for 
ever  been,  and  perhaps  will  for  ever  be,  abreast 
of  every  new  man  that  comes  into  the  world. 
They  are  nature  and  divinity  set  to  music,  —  to  a 
perfect  natural  music,  —  the  key  of  which  we 
bring  into  the  world  when  we  come.  They  will 
only  die  out,  and  be  forgotten,  when  man  ceases 
to  wrestle  and  stagger  under  his  burden,  or  to 
exult  and  clap  his  hands  in  his  great  moments  of 
victory. 

We  shall  for  ever  gather  new  insight  into  the 


272  THE   BOOK   OF   PSALMS. 

laws  of  nature ;  but,  if  we  are  imbued  with  the 
spirit  of  the  Psalms,  we  shall  never  cease  to  hear 
the  voice  of  God  in  the  clang  of  the  sea  booming 
among  the  rocks ;  to  see  him  in  the  light  of  the 
morning  when  the  sun  riseth,  —  the  fair  morning 
without  clouds,  with  the  tender  grass  springing 
out  of  the  earth  by  the  clear  shining  after  rain. 
We  shall  measure  the  courses  of  the  stars,  and 
discover  their  great  secrets  more  and  more  clear- 
ly in  the  ever-growing  ages ;  but  no  attainment 
will  ever  carry  us  above  that  grand  utterance, 
"  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and  the 
firmament  showeth  his  handiwork.  There  is  no 
speech  or  language  where  their  voice  is  not 
heard.  The  sun  rejoices  as  a  strong  man  to  run 
a  race,  and  there  is  nothing  hid  from  his  power." 
And  men  will  for  ever  say,  "I  laid  me  down, 
and  slept;  for  the  Lord  sustained  me."  And 
they  will  never  forget  to  cry,  "  In  the  time  when 
I  am  old  and  gray-headed,  0  God!  do  not  for- 
sake me."  And,  "  As  the  hart  panteth  after  the 
water-brook,  even  so  panteth  my  soul  after  God," 
and,  while  there  is  danger,  they  will  cry,  "  Keep 
me  as  the  apple  of  thine  eye ;  hide  me  under  the 
shadow  of  thy  wing  ;  "  while  there  is  deliverance, 


THE   BOOK   OF   PSALMS.  273 

men  will  tell  how  God  "  bowed  the  heavens,  aiid 
came  down,"  and  "  redeemed  the  souls  of  his 
servants,  so  that  none  of  them  that  trusted  in 
him  were  desolate."  And,  while  ever  there  is 
death,  there  will  be  men  who  will  be  sure  to 
sing,  "  My  heart  is  glad,  for  thou  wilt  not  leave 
my  soul  in  the  grave,  nor  suffer  thine  holy  one 
to  see  corruption :  therefore  I  will  rest  in  hope. 
Thou  wilt  show  me  the  path  of  life.  I  shall  be 
satisfied  when  I  awake  in  thy  likeness." 

And  so  I  think  it  will  be  for  ever  with  this 
book,  studded  all  over  with  living  sentences  set 
to  the  music  of  living  souls.  The  vindictive 
Psalms  will  die  out ;  we  shall  put  them  aside. 
They  were  the  outpouring  of  hearts  made  savage 
by  oppression  in  a  savage  time.  They  are  noth- 
ing to  us,  or  we  to  them.  We  could  do  better 
without  them  to-day.  We  can  afford  to  have  two 
psalms  exactly  alike,  as  we  could  afford  to  have 
two  copies  of  the  song,  "  To  Mary  in  Heaven," 
in  the  same  book.  None  of  these  things  can 
trouble  us,  when  we  come  with  a  sweet,  whole- 
some frankness  to  this  great  book,  and  enter  into 
the  spirit  and  power  of  its  utterances,  wherever 
they  chord  with  the  longings  and  aspirations  of 
the  soul. 


XV. 

THE  BATTLE-FIELD  OF  FORT  DONELSON. 

Narrative  Sermon,  delivered  March  2,  1862. 

I  propose  to  speak  to  you  this  morning  about  the 
battle-field  at  Fort  Donelson,  —  of  those  that  are 
alive  and  well  there,  those  that  are  wounded  and 
sick,  and  those  that  are  dead.  I  do  this  because 
the  subject  fills  my  heart  and  mind  above  all 
others  at  this  time ;  because  you  have  a  right  to 
expect  your  pastor  to  tell  you  what  reason  justi- 
fied him  in  leaving  your  church  vacant  last  Sun- 
day, without  asking  your  permission ;  because 
I  know  nothing  can  be  of  so  much  interest  to 
you  as  the  story  of  my  week's  experience ;  and, 
finally,  because  the  thing  itself  teaches  the  real 
divinity  and  gospel  of  the  time. 

It  was  natural,  when  the  news  was  flashed  into 
our  city,  that  the  great  battle,  as  fierce,  for  the 
number  engaged  in  it,  and  as  protracted  as  Wa- 
terloo, was  turned  into  a  transcendent  victory ; 
[274] 


BATTLE-FIELD   OF   FORT   DONELSON.  275 

and  when  bells  were  ringing,-. -banners  waving, 
men  shaking  hands  everywhere,  and  breaking 
into  a  laughter  that  ended  in  tears,  and  into 
tears  that  ended  in  laughter,  —  that  we  should 
all  remember  that  this  victory  had  been  won  at  a 
terrible  price  ;  and  that  those  bells,  so  jubilant  to 
us,  would  be  remembered  by  many  a  wife  as  the 
knell  that  told  her  she  was  a  widow,  by  Rachels 
weeping  for  their  children,  and  by  desolate  Davids 
uttering  the  old  bitter  cry,  "  Would  to  God  I  had 
died  for  thee,  my  son,  my  son  !  " 

And  it  was  natural,  too,  that  we  should  remem- 
ber, that  there,  on  that  battle-field,  must  be  vast 
numbers,  friends  and  foes,  alike  suffering  great 
agonies,  which  we  could  do  some  small  thing  to 
mitigate,  if  we  could  only  get  there  with  such 
medicines  and  surgery,  refreshment  and  sym- 
pathy, as  God  had  poured  into  the  bosom  of  our 
great  city,  pressed  down,  shaken  together,  and 
running  over. 

Sydney  Smith  has  said  that  there  would  be  a 
great  many  more  good  Samaritans  in  the  world 
than  there  are,  if  we  could  be  good  Samaritans 
without  the  oil  and  the  two  pence.  He  might 
have  said  that  there  are  a  great  many  who  give 


276  BATTLE-FIELD    OF    FORT   DOXELSON. 

the  oil  and  the  two  pence  as  gladly  and  readily 
as  their  great  parabolic  prototype ;  and  it  was  a 
fine  illustration  of  the  sort  of  life  we  live  almost 
unconsciously  in  these  distant  centres  of  a  new 
civilization,  that  a  great  meeting  should  gather 
itself  together  without  effort,  provide  the  oil  and 
the  two  pence  in  a  wonderful  plenty,  find  a  great 
company  of  surgeons  and  others  ready  to  leave 
every  sort  of  indispensable  work  that  they  could 
not  possibly  have  left  the  day  before,  and  see 
them  away  on  the  very  first  train  that  started  in 
the  direction  of  the  battle-field  after  we  got  the 
news  of  the  victory. 

Let  me  here  point  out  the  striking  fact  in  our 
human  nature,  that  while  we  are  constantly  in- 
venting excuses  why  we  will  not  do  this  thing  or 
that,  and  putting  the  yoke  of  oxen  or  the  piece  of 
land  we  have  just  bought,  or  the  wife  we  have 
just  married  or  are  about  to  marry,  in  the  way  of 
all  sorts  of  divine  things,  there  comes  some  great 
sweeping  sorrow  or  joy,  with  its  consequent  duty, 
once  and  again  in  our  life,  before  which  our  ex- 
cuse goes  down  like  a  wall  of  cards.  We  can 
resist  the  marriage-supper ;  but  a  city  afire,  a 
great  victory  that  will  tell  on   the    fate  of  the 


BATTLE-FIELD   OF   FORT   DONELSON.  277 

nation  for  all  time  to  come,  our  own  child  in  a 
fever,  or  a  man  buried  in  a  well  just  as  we  are 
going  past,  flames  over  all  excuses  to  the  sound- 
hearted  man  or  woman.  God  seems  to  deal  with 
us  at  such  moments  as  we  deal  with  our  children 
after  a  long  perversity.  He  sets  us  down  in  some 
place  with  a  touch  we  know  it  is  impossible  to 
resist ;  and  seems  to  say  to  us,  "  Now,  sir,  stand 
just  there,  and  do  just  so." 

It  seems  a  trifle  to  mention,  and  I  would  pass 
it  over,  if  I  thought  that  reading  about  it  would 
give  you  the  sense  of  it ;  but  it  was  not  so  with 
me,  and  I  suppose  is  not  with  the  most  of  you. 
You  go  down  Lake  Street  over  a  deep,  solid  ice, 
take  your  seat  in  the  cars,  race  over  great,  dreary 
reaches  of  snow-clad  "  prairie  "  and  ice-bound 
waters,  to  step  at  last  from  the  car  into  deep,  soft 
mud,  at  the  end  of  this  wonderful  iron  road,  and 
not  a  vestige  of  ice  or  snow  is  to  be  seen.  It  was 
the  first  time  in  my  life  that  I  got  a  clear  realiza- 
tion of  parallels  of  latitude.  Our  great  desire,  of 
course,  was  to  get  to  Fort  Donelson  and  to  our 
work  in  the  shortest  possible  time ;  and  I  am 
sure  you  will  not  thank  me  for  a  full  account  of 
Cairo,  historical  and  descriptive.     I  will  merely 


278  BATTLE-FIELD    OF   FORT   DONELSON. 

say,  when  you  want  to  solicit  a  quiet  place  of 
retirement  in  the  summer,  do  not  even  go  to  look 
at  Cairo.  I  assure  you,  it  will  not  suit.  It  is 
notable  here  only  for  being  the  first  point  where 
we  met  with  traces  of  the  great  conflict.  The 
first  I  saw  were  three  or  four  of  those  long  boxes, 
that  hold  only  and  always  the  same  treasure ; 
these  were  shells  nailed  together  by  comrades  in 
the  camp,  I  suppose,  to  send  some  brave  man 
home.  As  I  went  past  one  lying  on  the  sidewalk 
in  the  dreary  rain  and  mud,  I  read  on  a  card  the 
name  of  a  gallant  officer  who  had  fallen  in  the 
fight ;  and,  as  I  stood  for  a  moment  to  look  at  it, 
the  soldier  who  had  attended  it  came  up,  together 
with  the  brother  of  the  dead  man,  who  had  been 
sent  for  to  meet  the  body.  It  seemed  there  was 
some  doubt  whether  this  might  not  be  some  other 
of  the  half-dozen  who  had  been  labelled  at  once ; 
and  the  coffin  must  be  opened  before  it  was  taken 
away. 

I  glanced  at  the  face  of  the  living  brother  as 
he  stood  and  gazed  at  the  face  of  the  dead  ;  but  I 
must  not  desecrate  that  sight  by  a  description. 
He  was  his  brother  beloved,  and  he  was  dead  ; 
but  he  had  fallen  in  a  <n-eat  battle,  where  treason 


BATTLE-FIELD   OF   FORT   DONELSON.  279 

bit  the  dust,  and  he  was  faithful  unto  death.  He 
must  have  died  instantly  ;  for  the  wound  was  in 
a  mortal  place,  and  there  was  not  one  line  or  fur- 
row to  tell  of  a  long  agony,  but  a  look  like  a  quiet 
child,  winch  told  how  the  old  confidence  of  He- 
brew David,  "  I  shall  be  satisfied  when  I  wake  in 
Thy  likeness,"  was  verified  in  all  the  confusion 
of  the  battle.  God's  finger  touched  him,  and  he 
slept ;  and  — 

"The  great  intelligences  fair 
That  range  above  our  mortal  state, 
In  circle  round  the  blessed  gate, 
Received  and  gave  him  welcome  there." 

One  incident  I  remember,  as  we  were  detained 
at  Cairo,  that  gave  me  a  sense  of  how  curi- 
ously the  laughter  and  the  tears  of  our  lives  are 
blended.  I  had  hardly  gone  a  square  from  that 
touching  sight,  when  I  came  across  a  group  of 
men  gathered  round  a  soldier  wounded  in  the 
head.  Nothing  would  satisfy  them  but  to  see  the 
hurt ;  and  the  man,  with  perfect  good  nature, 
removed  the  bandage.  It  was  a  bullet-wound, 
very  near  the  centre  of  the  forehead  ;  and  the 
man  declared  the  ball  hud  flattened,  and  fallen 
off.  "  But,"  said  a  simple  man  eagerly,  "  why 
didn't  the  ball  go  into  your  head?"  —  "Sir," 


280  BATTLE-FIELD    OF    FORT    DONELSON. 

said  the  soldier  proudly, "  my  head's  too  hard  :  a 
ball  can't  get  through  it !  " 

A  journey  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles  up 
the  Ohio  and  Cumberland  Rivers  brought  us  to 
Fort  Donelson ;  and  we  got  there  at  sunset.  I 
went  at  once  into  the  camp,  and  found  there  dear 
friends  who  used  to  sit  in  these  pews,  and  had 
stood  fast  through  all  the  thickest  battle.  They 
gave  us  coffee,  which  they  drank  as  if  it  were 
nectar,  and  we  as  if  it  were  senna. 

A  body  of  men  drew  up  to  see  us,  and  de- 
manded the  inevitable  "  few  remarks :  "  and  we 
told  them  through  our  tears  how  proud  and 
thankful  they  had  made  us,  and  what  great 
tides  of  gladness  had  risen  for  them  in  our  city, 
and  wherever  the  tidings  of  victory  had  run  ;  and 
how  our  hands  gave  but  a  feeble  pressure,  our 
voices  but  a  feeble  echo,  of  the  mighty  spirit  that 
was  everywhere  reaching  out  to  greet  those 
that  were  safe,  to  comfort  the  suffering,  and  to 
sorrow  for  the  dead. 

The  "  own  correspondents  "  of  the  newspapers 
describe  Fort  Donelson  just  as  if  a  man  should 
say  that  water  is  a  fluid,  or  granite  a  solid.  I 
have  seen  no  printed  description  of  it  that  will 


BATTLE-FIELD    OF    FORT    DONELSON.  281 

make  a  picture  in  the  mind.  I  think  there  is  a 
picture  graven  on  some  silent  soul,  that  will  get 
itself  printed  some  time.  But  it  took  years  to 
get  a  word-picture  of  Dunbar,  and  it  may  take  as 
long  to  get  one  of  Donelson.  If  you  take  a  bow, 
and  tighten  the  string  until  it  is  very  much  over 
bent,  and  lay  it  down  on  a  table,  with  the  string 
toward  you,  it  will  give  a  faint  idea  of  the  breast- 
works ;  the  river  being  to  them  what  the  cord  is 
to  the  bow.  At  the  right-hand  corner,  where  the 
bow  and  cord  join,  is  the  famous  water-battery, 
commanding  a  straight  reach  in  the  river  of 
about  a  mile,  where  the  gunboats  must  come 
up ;  and  at  the  other  end  of  the  cord,  up  the 
river,  lies  the  town  of  Dover. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  go  over  the  entire 
ground  with  a  number  of  our  friends,  and  to 
wander  here  and  there  alone  at  rare  moments 
beside.  The  day  I  spent  there  was  like  one  of 
our  sweetest  May-days.  As  I  stood  in  a  bit  of  se- 
cluded woodland,  in  the  still  morning,  the  spring 
birds  sang  as  sweetly,  and  flitted  about  as  mer- 
rily, as  if  no  tempest  of  fire  and  smoke  and 
terror  had  ever  driven  them  in  mortal  haste  away. 
In  one  place  where  the  battle  had  raged,  I  found 


282  BATTLE-FIELD    OF    FORT    DONELSON. 

a  little  bunch  of  sweet  bergamot,  that  had  just 
put  out  its  brown-blue  leaves,  rejoicing  in  its  first 
resurrection ;  and  a  bed  of  daffodils,  ready  to 
unfold  their  golden  robes  to  the  sun :  and  the 
green  grass  in  sunny  places  was  fair  to  see.  But, 
where  great  woods  had  cast  their  shadows,  the 
necessities  of  attack  and  defence  had  made  one 
haggard  and  almost  universal  ruin,  —  trees  cut 
down  into  all  sorts  of  wild  confusion,  torn  and 
splintered  by  cannon-ball,  trampled  by  horses 
and  men,  and  crushed  under  the  heavy  wheels 
of  artillery.     One  sad  wreck  covered  all. 

Of  course,  it  was  not  possible  to  cover  all  the 
ground,  or  to  cut  down  all  the  trees.  But  here 
and  there,  where  the  defenders  would  sweep  a 
pass,  where  our  brave  men  must  come,  all  was 
bared  for  the  work  of  death ;  and,  where  the 
battle  had  raged,  the  wreck  was  fearful. 

Our  ever-busy  Mother  Nature  had  already 
brought  down  great  rains  to  wash  the  crimson 
stains  from  her  bosom;  and  it  was  only  in  some 
blanket  cast  under  the  bushes,  or  some  loose 
garment  taken  from  a  wounded  man,  that  these 
most  fearful  sights  were  to  be  seen.  But  all  over 
the  field  were  strewn  the  implements  of  death, 


BATTLE-FIELD   OP   FORT   DONELSON.  283 

with  garments,  harness,  shot  and  shell,  dead 
horses,  and  the  resting-places  of  dead  men. 
Almost  a  week  had  passed  since  the  battle,  and 
most  of  the  dead  were  buried.  We  heard  of 
twos  and  threes,  and  in  one  place  of  eleven,  still 
lying  where  they  fell ;  and,  as  we  rode  down  a 
lonely  pass,  we  came  to  one  waiting  to  be  laid  in 
the  dust,  and  stopped  for  a  moment  to  note  the 
sad  sight.  Pray,  look  out  from  my  eyes  at  him 
as  he  lies  where  he  fell.  You  see  by  his  garb  that 
he  is  one  of  the  rebel  army  ;  and,  by  the  pecu- 
liar marks  of  that  class,  that  he  is  a  city  rough. 
There  is  little  about  him  to  soften  the  grim 
picture  that  rises  up  before  you,  as  he  rests  in 
perfect  stillness  by  that  fallen  tree  ;  but  there  is 
a  shawl,  coarse  and  homely,  that  must  have 
belonged  to  some  woman ;   and  — 

"His  hands  are  folded  on  his  breast: 
There  is  no  other  thing  expressed, 
But  long  disquiet  merged  in  rest." 

Will  you  still  let  me  guide  you  through  that 
scene  as  it  comes  up  before  me  ?  That  long 
mound,  with  pieces  of  board  here  and  there,  is  a 
grave  ;  and  sixty-one  of  our  brave  fellows  rest  in 
it,  side  by  side.     Those  pieces  of  board  are  the 


284  BATTLE-FIELD   OF   FORT   DONELSON. 

gravestones,  and  the  chisel  is  a  black-lead  pencil. 
The  queer,  straggling  letters  tell  you  that  the 
common  soldier  has  done  this,  to  preserve,  for  a 
few  days  at  least,  the  memory  of  one  who  used 
to  go  out  with  him  on  the  dangerous  picket- 
guard,  and  sit  with  him  by  the  camp-fire,  and 
whisper  to  him,  as  they  lay  side  by  side  in  the 
tent  through  the  still  winter  night,  the  hope  he 
had  before  him  when  the  war  was  over,  or  the 
trust  in  this  comrade  if  he  fell.  There  you  see 
one  large  board,  and  in  a  beautiful,  flowing  hand, 
"  John  Olver,  Thirty-first  Illinois :  "  and  you 
wonder  for  a  moment  whether  the  man  who  has 
so  tried  to  surpass  the  rest  was  nursed  at  the 
same  breast  with  John  Olver ;  or  whether  John 
was  a  comrade,  hearty  and  trusty  beyond  all 
price. 

And  you  will  observe  that  the  dead  are  buried 
in  companies,  every  man  in  his  own  company, 
side  by  side  ;  that  the  prisoners  are  sent  out  after 
the  battle  to  bury  their-  own  dead ;  but  that  our 
own  men  will  not  permit  them  to  bury  a  fellow- 
soldier  of  the  Union,  but  every  man  in  this  sa- 
cred cause  is  held  sacred  even  for  the  grave. 

And  thus,  on  the  crest  of  a  hill,  is  the  place 


BATTLE-FIELD   OP   FORT   DONELSON.  285 

where  the  dwellors  in  that  little  town  have 
huried  their  dead  since  ever  they  came  to  live  on 
the  bank  of  the  river.  White  marble  and  gray 
limestone  and  decayed  wooden  monuments  tell 
who  rests  beneath.  There  stands  a  gray  stone, 
cut  with  these  home-made  letters,  that  tell  yoiv 
how  William  N.  Ross  died  on  the  twenty-sixth 
day  of  March,  1814,  in  the  twenty-sixth  year  of 
his  age ;  and  right  alongside  are  the  graves, 
newly  made,  of  men  who  died  last  week  in  a 
strife  which  no  wild  imagining  of  this  native  man 
ever  conceived  possible  in  that  quiet  spot.  Here, 
in  the  midst  of  the  cemetery,  the  rebel  officers 
have  pitched  their  tents ;  for  the  place  is  one 
where  a  commander  can  see  easily  the  greater 
part  of  the  camp.  Here  is  a  tent  where  some 
woman  has  lived,  for  she  has  left  a  sewing- 
machine  and  a  small  churn  ;  and  not  far  away, 
you  see  a  hapless  kitten  shot  dead ;  and  every- 
where things  that  make  you  shudder,  and  fill 
you  with  sadness,  over  the  wreck  and  ruin  of 
war. 

Here  you  meet  a  man  who  has  been  in  com- 
mand, and  stood  fast ;  and,  when  you  say  some 
simple  word  of  praise  to  him  in  the  name  of  all 


286  BATTLE-FIELD    OF    FORT    DONELSON. 

who  love  their  country,  he  blushes  and  stammers 
like  a  woman,  and  tells  you  he  tried  to  do  his 
best ;  and,  when  we  get  to  Mound  City,  we  shall 
find  a  man  racked  with  pain,  who  will  forget  to 
suffer  in  telling  how  this  brave  man  you  have 
just  spoken  to  not  only  stood  by  his  own  regi- 
ment in  a  fierce  storm  of  shot,  but,  when  he  saw 
a  regiment  near  his  own  giving  back  because 
their  officers  showed  the  white  feather,  rode  up 
to  the  regiment,  hurled  a  mighty  curse  at  those 
who  were  giving  back,  stood  fast  by  the  men  in 
the  thickest  fight,  and  saved  them ;  and,  says 
the  sick  man  with  tears  in  his  eyes, "  I  would 
rather  be  a  private  under  him,  than  a  captain 
under  any  other  man." 

I  notice  one  feature  in  this  camp,  that  I  never 
saw  before  :  the  men  do  not  swear  and  use  pro- 
fane words  as  they  used  to  do.  There  is  a  little 
touch  of  seriousness  about  them.  They  are 
cheerful  and  hearty ;  and,  in  a  few  days,  they 
will  mostly  fall  back  into  the  old  bad  habit  so 
painful  to  hear :  but  they  have  been  too  near  to 
the  tremendous  verities  of  hell  and  heaven  on 
that  battle-field,  to  turn  them  into  small  change 
for  every-day  use  just  yet.     They  have  taken  the 


BATTLE-FIELD   OF    FORT   DONELSON.  287 

Eternal  Name  for  common  purposes  a  thousand 
times;  and  we  feel  as  if  we  could  say  with  Paul, 
"  The  times  of  this  ignorance  God  passed  by." 
But  on  that  fearful  day,  when  judgment-fires 
were  all  aflame,  a  voice  said,  "  Be  still,  and  know 
that  I  am  God;"  and  they  are  still  under  the 
shadow  of  that  awful  name. 

Now,  friends,  I  can  give  you  these  hints  and 
incidents,  and  many  more  if  it  were  needful ; 
hut  you  must  still  be  left  without  a  picture  of 
the  battle-field,  and  I  must  hasten  to  the  work 
we  want  to  do.  The  little  town  of  Dover  was 
full  of  sick  and  wounded ;  and  they,  first  of  all, 
commanded  our  attention.  I  have  seen  too  much 
of  the  soldier's  life  to  expect  much  comfort  for 
him ;  but  we  found  even  less  than  I  expected 
among  those  who  were  huddled  together  there. 
There  was  no  adequate  comfort  of  any  kind : 
many  were  laid  on  the  floor,  most  were  entirely 
unprovided  with  a  change  of  linen,  and  not  one 
had  any  proper  nourishment.  What  we  carried 
with  us  was  welcome  beyond  all  price.  The 
policy  of  our  commanders  was  to  remove  all  the 
wounded  on  steamboats  to  Paducah,  Mound  City, 
and  other  places  on  the  rivers  ;  and  it  was  a  part 


288  BATTLE-FIELD   OP   FORT   DONELSON. 

of  my  duty,  with  several  other  gentlemen  acting 
as  surgeons  and  nurses,  to  attend  one  hundred 
and  fifty-eight  wounded  men  from  Fort  Donelson 
to  Mound  City. 

I  may  not  judge  harshly  of  what  should  be 
done  in  a  time  of  war  like  this  in  the  West :  it 
is  very  easy  to  be  unfair.  I  will  simply  tell  you, 
that,  had  it  not  been  for  the  things  sent  up  by 
the  Sanitary  Commission  in  the  way  of  linen, 
and  things  sent  by  our  citizens  in  the  way  of 
nourishment,  I  see  no  possibility  by  which  those 
wounded  men  could  have  been  lifted  out  of  their 
bloodstained  woollen  garments  saturated  with  wet 
and  mud  ;  or  could  have  had  any  food  and  drink, 
except  corn-mush,  hard  bread,  and  the  turbid 
water  of  the  river. 

That  long  cabin  of  the  steamboat  is  packed 
with  wounded  men,  laid  on  each  side,  side  by 
side,  so  close  that  you  can  hardly  put  one  foot 
between  the  men  to  give  them  a  drink  or  to  cool 
their  fearful  hurts.  Most  of  us  have  been  hurt 
badly  at  some  time  in  our  life,  and  remember 
what  tender  and  constant  care  we  needed  and 
got.  If  you  will  substitute  a  rather  careless  and 
clumsy  man  for  the  mother  or  wife  who  waited 


BATTLE-FIELD    OF    FORT   DONELSON.  2S9 

on  you,  and  divide  his  time  and  attention  among 
perhaps  forty  patients,  you  will  be  able  to  con- 
ceive something  of  what  had  been  the  condition 
of  these  poor  travellers  but  for  the  Chicago  Com- 
mittee. 

Here  is  one  who  has  lost  an  arm,  and  there 
one  who  has  lost  a  leg.  This  old  man  of  sixty 
has  been  struck  by  a  grape-shot,  and  that  boy  of 
eighteen  has  been  shot  through  the  lung.  Here 
a  noble-looking  man  has  lived  through  a  fearful 
bullet-wound  just  over  the  eye ;  and  that  poor 
German,  who  could  never  talk  English  so  as  to 
be  readily  understood,  has  been  hit  in  the  mouth, 
and  has  lost  all  hope  of  talking,  except  by  signs. 

That  man  with  a  shattered  foot  talks  in  the 
old  dialect  I  spoke  when  I  was  a  child ;  and, 
when  I  answer  him  in  his  own  tongue,  the  words 
touch  him  like  a  sovereign  medicine. 

The  doctor  comes  to  this  young  man,  and  says 
quietly,  "  I  think,  my  boy,  I  shall  have  to  take 
your  arm  off; "  and  he  cries  out  in  a  great 
agony,  "  0  dear  doctor  !  do  save  my  arm !  "  and 
the  doctor  tells  him  he  will  try  a  little  longer ; 
and,  when  he  has  gone,  the  poor  fellow  says  to 
me,  "  What  shall  1  do  if  I  lose  my  arm  !     I  have 

13 


290  BATTLE-FIELD    OF   FORT   DONELSON. 

a  poor  old  mother  at  home,  and  there  is  no  one 
to  do  any  thing  for  her  but  me." 

That  man  who  has  lost  his  arm  is  evidently 
sinking.  As  I  lay  wet  linen  on  the  poor  stump, 
he  tells  me  how  "  he  has  a  wife  and  two  children 
at  home,  and  he  has  always  tried  to  do  right  and 
to  live  a  manly  life."  The  good,  simple  heart  is 
clearly  trying  to  balance  its  accounts  before  it 
faces  the  great  event  which  it  feels  to  be  not  far 
distant.  As  I  go. past  him,  I  see  the  face  grow- 
ing quieter ;  and  at  last  good  Mr.  Williams,  who 
has  watched  him  to  the  end,  tells  me  he  put  up 
his  one  hand,  gently  closed  his  own  eyes,  and 
then  laid  the  hand  across  his  breast,  and  died. 

That  boy  in  the  corner,  alone,  suffers  agony 
such  as  I  may  not  tell.  All  day  long,  we  hear 
his  cries  of  pain  through  half  the  length  of  the 
boat ;  far  into  the  night,  the  tide  of  anguish 
pours  over  him :  but  at  last  the  pain  is  all  gone  ; 
and  he  calls  one  of  our  number  to  him,  and  says, 
"  I  am  going.  I  want  you  to  please  write  a  letter 
to  my  father:  tell  him  I  owe  such  a  man  two 
dollars  and  a  half,  and  such  a  man  owes  me  four 
dollars  ;  and  he  must  draw  my  pay,  and  keep  it 
all   for  himself."     Then  he  lay  silently  a  little 


BATTLE-FIELD    OF    FORT    DONELSON.  291 

while,  and,  as  the  nurse  wet  his  lips,  said,  "  Oh, 
I  should  so  like  a  drink  out  of  my  father's 
well !  "  and,  in  a  moment,  he  had  gone  where 
angels  gather  immortality,  — 

"  By  Life's  fair  stream,  fast  by  the  throne  of  God." 

And  so  all  day  long,  with  cooling  water  and  soft 
linen,  with  morsels  of  food  and  sips  of  wine,  with 
words  of  cheer  and  tender  pity  to  every  one,  and 
most  of  all  to  those  that  were  in  the  sorest  need, 
we  tried  to  do  some  small  service  for  those  that 
had  done  and  suffered  so  much  for  us.  Some  are 
dead,  and  more  will  die ;  and  some  will  live,  and 
be  strong  men  again :  but  I  do  not  believe  that 
one  will  forget  our  poor  service  in  that  terrible 
pain ;  while  to  us  there  came  such  a  reward  in 
the  work  as  not  one  of  us  ever  felt  before,  and 
we  all  felt  that  it  was  but  a  small  fragment  of 
the  debt  we  owed  to  the  brave  men  who  had 
given  life  itself  for  our  sacred  cause. 

Two  or  three  things  came  out  of  this  journey 
to  the  battle-field,  that  gave  me  some  new 
thoughts  and  realizations.  And  first,  in  all 
honor,  I  realized  more  fully  than  you  can  do, 
that,  in  those  victories  of  which  Fort  Donelson  is 
the  greatest,  we  have  reached  not  only  the  turn- 


292  BATTLE-FIELD    OF   FORT   DONELSON. 

ing-point,  as  we  hope,  of  this  dreadful  war,  but 
we  have  plucked  the  first-fruits  of  our  Western 
civilization.  I  am  not  here  to  question  for  one 
moment  the  spirit  and  courage  of  our  brothers 
in  the  East :  the  shade  of  Winthrop,  noblest  and 
knightliest  man,  the  peer  of  Arthur  for  truth,  of 
Richard  for  courage,  and  of  Sidney  for  gentle- 
ness, would  rise  up  to  rebuke  me.  Ball's  Bluff 
was  worse  than  Balaklava  as  a  criminal  blunder, 
and  equal  to  it  in  every  quality  of  steady,  hope- 
less courage.  America  will  never  breed  a  true 
man  who  will  not  weep  as  he  reads  the  story  of 
those  hapless  Harvard  boys,  whose  clear  eyes 
looked  out  at  death  steadily  to  the  last,  and  who 
scorned  to  flinch. 

But  here,  on  our  own  Western  prairies  and  in 
our  backwoods,  we  have  been  raising  a  new  gen- 
eration of  men,  whose  name  we  never  mentioned, 
under  new  influences,  whose  bearing  we  did  not 
understand ;  and,  the  first  time  they  could  get  a 
fair  field  and  no  favor,  they  sprang  into  the  fore- 
most soldiers  in  the  land. 

Good,  elderly  New-England  ministers  of  our 
own  faith  have  made  it  a  point  to  speak,  in 
Eastern    conventions,   of  our   hopeless   struggle 


BATTLE-FIELD    OF    FORT   DONELSON.  293 

with  the  semi-savagery  of  these  mighty  wilder- 
nesses. My  dear  doctor,  that  boy  of  eighteen 
was  born  in  the  prairies,  and  went  to  meetings 
where  you  would  have  gone  crazy  with  the  noise 
of  the  mighty  prayers  and  psalms  ;  and  he  got 
the  conversion  which  you  do  not  believe  in,  and 
was  a  sort  of  Methodist  or  Baptist :  but  he  stood 
like  one  of  Napoleon's  Old  Guard  through  all  the 
battle ;  and,  when  he  was  shot  down  and  could 
fight  no  longer,  his  mighty  spirit  dragged  the 
broken  tabernacle  into  the  bushes,  and  there  he 
prayed  with  all  his  might,  not  for  himself,  but 
that  the  God  of  battles  would  give  us  the  victory. 
That  rough-looking  man  was  wounded  twice  with 
ghastly  hurts,  and  twice  went  from  the  surgeon 
back  to  the  fight ;  and  only  gave  up  when  the 
third  shot  crippled  him  beyond  remedy. 

"  I  saw  those  '  Iowa-Second '  boys  come  on  to 
charge  the  breastworks,"  said  our  friend  Colonel 
Webster  to  us.  "  More  than  one  regiment  had 
been  beaten  back,  and  the  fortunes  of  the  day 
began  to  look  very  uncertain.  They  came  on 
steadily,  silently,  through  the  storm  of  shot, 
closing  up  as  their  comrades  fell :  and  without 
stopping  to  fire  a  single  volley  that  might  thin 


294  BATTLE-FIELD   OF   FORT   DONELSON. 

the  ranks  of  the  defenders,  and  make  some  gap 
by  which  they  might  pour  into  the  fortress,  they 
went  down  into  the  ditch,  and  clean  over  the 
defences ;  and  there  they  stayed  in  spite  of  all." 

One  quiet-looking  officer  saw  his  company 
sorely  thinned  in  the  beginning  of  the  day ;  and, 
that  the  cause  might  have  one  more  arm,  he  took 
musket  and  ammunition  from  one  who  could  use 
them  no  more,  and  fought  at  the  head  of  his 
company,  shot  for  shot,  all  day  long :  and,  as  a 
wounded  soldier  told  me  this  through  his  pain, 
he  added,  "  I  tell  you,  sir,  if  that  man  ever  runs 
for  an  office,  I'll  vote  for  him,  sure." 

Secondly,  From  all  these  experiences,  I  have 
got  a  fresh  conviction  of  the  great  mystery  of  the 
shedding  of  blood  for  salvation.  We  have  been 
accustomed,  especially  in  Unitarian  churches,  to 
consider  Paul's  ideas  about  blood-shedding  as 
the  fruit  of  his  education  under  a  sacrificial  Ju- 
daism ;  and  that,  again,  as  a  twin-sister  of  bar- 
barism :  but  as  I  went  over  this  battle-field,  and 
thought  on  the  dead  heroes  and  of  all  they  died 
for,  I  kept  repeating  over  each  one,  "  He  gave 
his  life  a  ransom  for  many ;"  and  I  wondered, 
when  I  thought  of  how  we  had  all  gone  astray  as 


BATTLE-FIELD   OF   FORT   DONELSON.  295 

a  people,  and  how  inevitable  this  war  had  become 
in  consequence,  as  the  final  test  of  the  two  great 
antagonisms,  whether  it  may  not  be  true  in  our 
national  affairs  as  in  a  more  universal  sense, — 
"  Without  the  shedding  of  blood,  there  is  no  re- 
mission of  sins.  "  And  so,  by  consequence,  every 
true  hero  fallen  in  this  struggle  for  the  right  is 
also  a  saviour  to  the  nation  and  the  race. 

Finally,  I  came  to  feel  a  more  tender  pity  for 
the  deluded  men  on  the  other  side,  and  a  more 
unutterable  hatred  of  that  vile  thing  that  has 
made  them  what  they  are.  On  all  sides  I  found 
young  men,  with  faces  as  sweet  and  ingenuous 
as  the  faces  of  our  own  children,  as  open  to  sym- 
pathy, and,  according  to  their  light,  as  ready  to 
give  all  they  had  for  their  cause. 

I  felt  like  weeping  to  see  children  of  our  noble 
mother  so  bare  and  poor  and  sad ;  to  see  their 
little  villages,  so  different  from  those  where  the 
community  is  not  tainted  by  the  curse  and  pro- 
scription of  human  bondage ;  and  I  felt,  more 
deeply  than  ever  before,  how  for  the  sake  of  those 
men,  who  in  spite  of  all  are  our  brothers,  this 
horrible  curse  and  delusion  of  slavery  ought  to 
be  routed  utterly  out  of  the  land. 


XVI. 

OMEGA. 
Gen.  iii.  9 :  "  Where  art  thou?  " 

This  question  was  put  first  to  the  first  man,  as 
it  has  been,  and  will  be,  to  all  his  descendants. 
It  was  put  to  Adam  as  he  was  closing  one  cycle 
of  his  life,  and  opening  another.  The  innocence 
of  ignorance  had  left  him,  and  the  insight  which, 
for  good  or  evil,  always  follows,  had  taken  its 
place.  The  first  man  that  ever  did  wrong,  he 
was  just  then  through  his  first  wrong-doing ; 
and  it  was  with  him  as  it  has  been  with  his  chil- 
dren ever  since  :  he  was  afraid  to  meet  God  with 
the  sin  on  his  soul. 

This  fact,  in  itself,  would  be  food  for  the  most 
pregnant  meditation  ;  but  there  is  another  mat- 
ter, I  think,  still  better  at  this  particular  time. 
The  man  is  just  completing  one  cycle  of  his  life, 
I  said,  and  entering  another.  It  was  inevitable 
it  should  be  so,  as  the  sunrise  to-morrow.  He 
[296] 


OMEGA.  297 

tried  to  avoid  it ;  but  God  would  not  let  him 
avoid  it.  He  never  will.  It  would  turn  this 
earth  into  hell,  if  he  did,  right  where  we  stand. 
"  It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the 
living  God  :"  it  would  be  unspeakably  more  fear- 
ful not!  to  fall  into  his  hands,  —  to  come  to  an 
end  and  a  beginning  with  sin  on  the  soul,  and 
without  the  Holy  Spirit  to  press  that  sin  home 
painfully,  and  compel  us  to  hide  our  faces  for 
shame.  I  have  heard  preachers  often  try  to  make 
sin  fearful  by  proclaiming  a  torture  of  fire  for  it ; 
but  the  most  fearful  fire  I  ever  heard  of  was  one 
in  which  there  was  no  torture  ;  where  a  man 
had  lain  down  on  a  lime-kiln,  and  the  vapor  had 
come  up  and  destroyed  all  feeling,  and  then  the 
fire  ;  and,  when  morning  came,  what  the  fire  had 
touched  was  charred  bone,  and  the  man  never 
knew  it,  —  never  knew  it,  or  he  would  have 
been  saved. 

And  now,  after  these  days  of  communion  to- 
gether,—  some  sad,  and  some  joyful,  but  all,  I 
trust,  good,  —  we  have  come  to  an  end  and  a 
beginning.  When  we  meet  again,  it  will  be  in 
another  year.  You  have  been  busy,  in  these 
days,  taking  account  of  where  you  stand  in  your 
13* 


238  OMEGA. 

business.  You  will  make  very  sure  of  that  before 
you  are  through :  it  is  right  you  should.  "  He 
that  will  not  provide  for  his  own  household  is 
worse  than  an  infidel."  Let  all  religious  men 
remember,  who  let  their  affairs  lie  round  loose, 
while  others  they  count  infidel  keep  things  snug 
and  true,  that  of  the  two,  in  Paul's  estimation, 
the  careless  Christian  is  farthest  from  God.  But 
those  who  are  not  careless  in  these  matters,  and 
will  know  just  what  they  are  worth,  face  to-day 
another  question  not  less  but  more  imperative, 
"  What  am  I  worth  in  the  treasure  of  the  inner 
life  ?  how  does  that  account  stand  ?  What  I  am 
worth  in  the  world  I  shall  make  sure  about ;  but 
then  what  I  am  worth  to  the  world,  and  the 
world  to  me,  demands  still  more  close  and  care- 
ful investigation." 

And  I  can  well  imagine,  how,  in  helping  you 
to  answer  this  question,  I  might  congratulate 
you,  first  of  all,  on  the  fact  that  you  are  another 
year  nearer  death  and  eternity.  This  must  be  the 
burden  of  all  that  is  heard  to-day  from  those  who 
seem  to  believe  it  is  the  whole  duty  of  man  to 
show  — 

il  How  earth  is  foul,  and  heaven  is  gracious." 


OMEGA.  299 

If  they  are  right  in  their  showing,  there  is  a  great 
outburst  of  congratulation  through  all  Christen- 
dom, because  one  year  more  has  gone,  and  pres- 
ently the  time  will  come  when  we  shall  exchange 
this  life  for  another. 

The  lad,  working  at  his  tasks  in  the  distant 
school,  may  love  the  school ;  but,  on  a  tablet  set 
in  a  corner  of  his  heart,  you  will  find  written, 
"  So  many  weeks  since  school  began  ;  only  so 
many  more,  and  then  I  go  home."  And  the  stout 
little  heart  beats  faster,  and  the  eyes  grow  misty, 
sometimes,  with  the  happy  anticipation.  The 
pilgrim  grows  always  more  glad  as  he  nears  his 
Mecca  or  Jerusalem.  The  outer  edge  of  the  des- 
ert is  seen  with  rapture  by  the  traveller  who  has 
been  jolting  and  rocking  for  days  on  the  back 
of  a  grunting  camel.  The  sailor,  over  half-way 
across  the  water,  pledges  the  port  he  is  bound 
for.  There  is  no  one  thing  I  can  think  of,  akin 
to  our  common  comparisons  between  this  world 
and  another,  that  ought  not  to  make  us  "glad  we 
are  so  much  nearer  done  with  this  than  ever  we 
were  before.  Is  this  earth  a  desert  land,  —  a 
valley  and  shadow  of  death,  —  an  enemy's  coun- 
try ?     Is  it  true,  as  the  Hymn-book  has  it,  that  — 


300  OMEGA. 

"  Prickly  thorns  through  all  the  ground 
And  mortal  poisons  grow; 
And  all  the  rivers,  that  are  found, 
With  dangerous  waters  flow" '? 

Then  well  may  we  be  thankful,  that  we  are  so 
much  nearer  done  with  pains  and  poisons  and 
dangers  for  ever  and  ever  more. 

And  yet  I  doubt  sincerely  whether  one  sermon 
will  be  preached  to-day,  in  which,  from  first  to 
last,  this  doctrine  will  be  pushed  to  its  inevitable 
conclusion  ;  whether  one  man  will  say,  "  Breth- 
ren, I  congratulate  you  that  soon  you  will  die, 
and  insist  on  your  accepting  my  congratulations 
as  the  inevitable  sequence  of  all  I  have  said  about 
earth  and  heaven  since  the  first  of  January  last." 
If  the  man  would  let  his  people  alone,  they 
might  let  the  thing  pass  as  one  of  the  absurdities 
into  which  the  best-regulated  pulpits  are  liable  to 
fall ;  but,  if  he  insisted  on  a  reply,  it  would  prob- 
ably be,  "  If  that  is  the  logic  of  your  teaching 
this  year,  next  year  you  must  change  your  logic, 
or  we  will  change  our  minister." 

So  this  "  Where  art  thou  ? "  urges  the  preacher, 
first  of  all,  to  ascertain  the  worth  of  his  own 
lessons.  It  comes  to  the  pulpit  before  it  comes 
to  the  pews ;  and,  if  in  his  own  honest  heart  the 


OMEGA.  301 

preacher  is  aware  that  there  is  something  wrong 
in  this  summing-up,  he  is  bound  to  see  where  it  is. 
He  will  see  then  that  the  result  is  wrong,  because 
the  statement  is  wrong.  I  dare  not  tell  a  man  I 
am  glad  he  is  so  much  nearer  his  end,  because 
I  have  been  saying  what  is  not  true  about  his  life. 
In  the  last  test,  God  has  seen  to  it,  that  nature 
should  be  stronger  than  such  grace  as  that.  I 
tell  men  this  world  is  a  valley  of  desolation,  —  a 
vain  show ;  and  its  life  a  cross,  a  burden,  and  a 
disappointment :  and  that  heaven  is  all  that  can 
be  imagined  and  more  of  blessedness.  Yet  I  dare 
not  say  then  to  my  friend,  "  I  am  glad  you  are 
soon  to  die."  What  makes  me  afraid  ?  Certainly, 
not  that  the  future  is  not  what  I  say,  and  infinitely 
more.  The  trouble  is,  I  have  got  hold  of  a  lop- 
sided truth,  when  I  make  earth  nought,  and 
heaven  every  thing.  And  the  truth  is,  this  earth 
is  my  home  now  as  certainly  as  heaven  will  be, 
and  the  life  that  now  is  a  blessing  as  surely  as 
that  which  is  to  come.  This  life  is  not  a  vapor, 
the  flash  of  a  shuttle  through  the  loom,  a  tale  that 
is  told,  a  withered  grass-blade  ;  and  the  truest 
seer  that  ever  looked  into  its  heart,  —  Jesus 
Christ,  —  never  said  it  was.     It  is  the  most  solid 


302  OMEGA. 

and  certain  thing  I  know  of  in  this  universe,  after 
the  life  of  God.  Is  it  a  cross  ?  it  is  also  a  crown. 
Is  it  a  burden  ?  it  is  a  blessing.  Are  there 
thorns  in  it  ?  there  are  roses.  Do  mortal  poisons 
grow  in  ?  let  me  find  out  their  secret,  and  I  can 
make  them  divine  medicines.  The  waters  are 
dangerous ;  but  they  make  a  province  as  the 
garden  of  God,  and  power  is  given  to  breast  them, 
master  them,  and  make  them  ministers.  The 
living  swim :  the  dead  only  float.  The  leaf  falls : 
the  young  bud  shoots.  I  am  quoting  Job  sitting 
in  his  ashes,  when  I  say  hard  things  about  life ; 
not  Jesus  sitting  on  the  Mount,  or  by  the  shore. 
Let  me  be  true  in  my  living ;  then  I  shall  rejoice 
that  I  live,  and  shall  not  fear  to  die.  A  great 
German  has  said,  that  "  to  the  blessed  eternity 
itself  there  is  no  other  handle  than  this  instant." 
Do  I  think  of  God  as  in  heaven  ?  he  is  here  too, 
or  he  is  not  there :  of  angels  ?  angels  are  all 
about  me :  of  golden  streets  ?  I  prefer  green  sward, 
and  so  shall  get  it.  Do  I  believe  in  heaven  as 
somewhere  to  go  ?  it  is  first  something  to  be. 
Heaven  is  a  temper,  then  a  place.  In  a  word,  the 
question,  "  Where  art  thou  ?  "  can  find  only  one 
answer  from  any  fair-living  man.     I  am  in  this 


OMEGA.  303 

world,  and  am  glad  of  it.  The  more  I  find  it  out, 
the  more  I  believe  in  it,  and  thank  God  for  it. 
And  I  mean  to  hold  on  to  it  as  long  as  I  can, 
just  as  a  sound-hearted  apple  holds  on  to  its 
tree,  tha.t  I  may  get  every  ray  of  its  sunlight, 
every  moment  of  its  darkness,  every  drop  of  its 
dew,  and  every  dash  of  its  wind  and  rain.  The 
holy  life  is  the  life  whole  to  this  present  world ; 
keeping  its  laws,  chording  with  its  harmonies, 
true  to  it  every  time,  and  to  the  life  that  is  in  it ; 
discerning  always  between  the  world  and  its 
wickedness,  and  holding  on  to  the  one  with  all 
my  might,  that  I  may  be  able  to  master  the  other, 
—  as  a  good  swimmer  holds  on  to  the  water,  and 
so  destroys  its  power  to  hurt  him. 

On  this  ground  I  congratulate  every  earnest 
man  and  woman  on  the  close  of  another  year,  not 
because  it  has  lifted  us  out  of  life,  but  because  it 
has  lifted  us  into  life,  —  not  that  we  are  older, 
but  that  we  are  more,  —  and  not  that  the  year  has 
been  all  any  one  of  us  would  wish  it,  either  for 
ourselves,  our  friends,  or  our  country;  but  that, 
in  the  great  sweep  of  the  eternal,  it  was  the  next 
thing  to  be  and  to  do.  So,  in  the  light  of  a 
boundless  life,  of  which  this  is  but  a  small  sec- 


304  OMEGA. 

tion,  and  in  which  a  loving  loyalty  to  this  world, 
as  God  has  made  it,  is  a  prime  element  for  the 
blessedness  of  the  life  to  come,  I  congratulate 
myself  and  you,  that  we  have  had  another  year 
of  its  influences,  to  abide  with  us  for  ever. 

Then  our  question  presents  itself  in  another 
way.  The  fact  that  I  am  not  to  be  hustled 
through  my  life,  but  to  abide  in  it  and  love  it, 
makes  it  imperative  that  I  shall  know  how  it  is  to 
be  done.  And  I  will  say  a  word  on  that,  first,  in 
its  most  material  aspects  ;  after,  as  I  may.  When 
this  fearful  and  wonderful  frame  was  created,  and 
became  the  visible  sign  of  myself,  there  was  hid- 
den in  its  secret  chambers  so  many  years  of  life. 
I  could  begin  from  the  day  I  became  accountable, 
and  use  those  years  wisely ;  could  write  "  value 
received"  through  my  early  manhood,  my  perfect 
prime,  and  my  ripening  age,  at  the  foot  of  every 
one  of  them,  and  so  use  this  world  as  not  abusing 
it ;  or  I  could  overdraw  my  account,  as  Burns 
did,  and  Byron,  and  many  another,  and  close  up 
before  forty.  This  is  what  is  commonly  called 
fast  living ;  and  it  is  fast  living :  but  if  I  have 
studied  life  to  any  purpose,  that  is  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  drunkard,  debauchee,  and  black- 


OMEGA.  305 

leg.  In  the  simple  matter  of  using  up  two  days 
in  one,  of  exhausting  the  vital  forces  of  life,  of 
wasting  more  energy  in  one  day  than  I  can 
recover  in  one  night,  or  in  six  days  than  I  can 
recover  in  seven  nights  and  a  Sunday,  —  I  can  do 
that  at  the  desk,  the  bar,  the  anvil,  or  the  plough. 
And  so,  this  day,  if  you  are  still  young  or  in  your 
prime,  yet  feel  that  you  arc  not  what  you  were  in 
health  and  strength  a  year  ago,  my  question, 
"Where  art  thou?"  touches  you.  You  are 
overdrawing  your  account,  my  friend ;  and,  if 
you  don't  take  care,  you  will  be  a  bankrupt. 
There  will  come  a  day  when  you  will  find  that 
nature  has  shut  down  on  you,  and  will  not  listen 
to  any  plea  of  necessity.  If  you  are  predestined 
to  live  the  mere  life,  but  exhaust  the  vital  life,  you 
may  drift  on  to  seventy;  but  you  have  done  at 
forty,  and  the  rest  will  be  only  one  weary  drag ; 
and  no  man  can  judge  for  you  how  much  you  can 
afford  to  spend.  Every  man  must  watch  the 
balance  for  himself,  and  answer  the  question  to 
God. 

But  let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  There  may 
come  a  time  in  the  life  of  a  man,  when  no  con- 
sideration of  how  much  life  he  is  spending  per 


308  OMEGA. 

day  ought  to  weigh  with  hiin  for  a  moment ;  any 
more  than,  in  imperative  need,  he  shall  hesitate 
whether  he  will  put  himself  in  deadly  peril,  to 
defend  some  sacred  trust ;  which  his  refusal  to 
defend  at  any  risk  of  life  would  render  the  rest 
of  the  life  he  might  have  to  live  worse  than 
worthless. 

But  I  am  now  speaking  of  that  even  responsi- 
bility that  comes  to  us  all,  —  of  the  every-day 
life  ;  and  the  way  a  man  may  overdraw  it,  to 
make  money,  or  win  some  bauble ;  or  even 
to  win  some  good  prize  in  ten  years,  that  ought 
to  take  him  twenty.  You  say  I  do  not  mean  to 
carry  on  in  this  wa}r.  I  will  turn  over  a  new 
leaf;  but  I  must  have  so  much  money  first,  or 
such  a  position,  or  have  done  such  a  thing.  I 
have  only  one  answer.  You  will  probably  get 
the  money  or  the  position :  you  may  not ;  but 
the  chances  are  you  will.  Then  you  will  not 
turn  over  a  new  leaf ;  or,  if  you  do,  it  may  be 
too  late.  "  Behold  !  now  is  the  day  of  salva- 
tion." There  never  was  a  time  when  the  tempta- 
tion to  be  reckless  of  this  life  was  so  heavy  and 
urgent  as  it  is  to-day ;  or  when  we  needed  so  to 
hold  on  to  the  old  steadfast  idea,  that  a  preacher 


OMEGA.  307 

shall  be  shut  out,  by  the  very  tenure  of  his  of- 
fice, from  the  ordinary  traffic  of  the  world,  that 
his  eye  may  be  clear,  and  his  spirit  unaffected 
by  what  dangerously  affects  those  that  wait  on 
his  ministry.  It  is  a  graver  moral  blunder  for 
a  pastor  to  speculate  in  corner  lots  or  oil  stocks, 
than  if  Gabriel  came  down  from  heaven  to  do 
it ;  because  he  stands  nearer  his  people  than 
Gabriel  can  hope  to  do;  and  the  moment  he 
casts  himself  into  these  great  swirling  currents 
of  temptation,  he  loses  the  quality  for  which, 
above  all  things,  they  ought  to  value  him,  —  the 
serene,  unworldly  heart.  For  it  is  impossible 
that  even  prayer  can  keep  the  preacher's  spirit 
open,  watchful,  and  tremulous  to  the  ever-vary- 
ing dangers  of  the  times,  if  he  is  not  in  some 
way  separate  from  them  too ;  and  he  may  be 
sure,  that  no  exhortation  he  can  give  about  a 
dangerous  love  of  money  can  be  more  than  sound- 
ing brass,  when  once  he  has  touched  the  edge  of 
the  greed  himself. 

And  be  sure  I  do  not  say  this  that  I  may 
merely  urge  the  husbanding  of  our  powers,  and 
the  enjoyment  of  the  fulness  of  our  life,  though 
that  is  a  right  good  thing ;  but  greatly  because, 


308  OMEGA. 

by  this  means,  vre  rise  into  the  better  life  while 
we  are  still  in  this,  and  make  a  heaven  about 
us  of  common  blessing. 

Scott  wrote  "  Guy  Mannering  "  in  a  few  weeks. 
It  is  full  of  the  aromatic  sap  of  his  genius. 
When  he  did  this,  he  was  in  his  perfect  prime ; 
his  poems  were  but  the  forerunners  of  his  best 
novels,  and  these  novels  are  the  crown  of  glory 
on  his  life.  But  Scott  had  one  fatal  greed:  he 
wanted  to  create  Abbotsford,  as  it  were,  in  a 
day.  There  was  no  glory  in  this,  as  there  is  no 
glory  in  the  million  things  a  million  other  men 
have  done,  who  might  have  done  better.  But,  to 
make  Abbotsford,  he  used  up  two  days  in  one, — 
poured  out  book  after  book  with  a  prodigality 
that  astonished  the  world.  The  result  was,  that 
Scott,  who  had  the  frame  and  stamina  of  a  giant, 
began  to  break  down.  In  this  there  were  two 
results  :  first,  loss  of  health,  that  concerned  Scott 
rather  than  the  world ;  second,  loss  of  inspira- 
tion, that  concerned  the  world  as  much  or  even 
more  than  the  man.  For,  just  as  the  man  lost 
his  vitality,  the  new  books  lost  their  peculiar 
and  perfect  power.  They  deteriorated  from 
genius   to   talent,  and   from   talent  to   common 


OMEGA.  309 

place ;  and  then  the  spell  that  had  held  the 
world,  lifted  men  into  better  atmospheres,  and 
quickened  and  nurtured  human  souls,  was  gone. 
Abbotsford  was  created,  and  then,  after  that,  re- 
deemed; but  the  world  was  the  loser  by  all  it 
bad  a  right  to  expect  of  its  noble  son.  If,  in- 
stead of  driving  and  draining  his  genius  like  a 
slave,  he  had  waited  reverently  for  its  welling, 
then,  when  the  sweet  waters  ran  freely,  had 
turned  them  into  the  golden  channels  of  great 
books,  for  the  blessing  of  the  world,  he  ought 
to  have  written  his  last  books  as  he  wrote  his 
first,  —  as  he  was  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
He  did  write  them  as  he  was  moved  by  his  pub- 
lishers. The  consequence  was,  that  the  publish- 
ers got  the  book ;  but  the  world  did  not  get  that 
without  which  it  was  as  worthless  as  a  book  of 
old  sermons. 

I  mention  this  as  an  illustration  of  the  deeper 
meaning  of  my  question.  In  such  a  life  as  that 
of  Channing,  there  seems  to  be  an  intimate  rela- 
tion between  the  frail  and  delicate  organism  and 
the  transcendent  genius.  We  are  at  a  loss  to 
guess  whether  such  a  soul  could  find  a  fitting 
instrument    in    any   other    body,  —  whether    it 


310  OMEGA. 

could  pierce  and  soar  so,  imprisoned  in  the 
mould  of  common  men.  But  I  conceive  this  to 
be  universally  true :  if  a  man  begins  life  with  a 
powerful  soul  in  a  powerful  frame,  and  then 
wastes  that  frame  in  a  reckless  disregard  of 
those  laws  on  which  it  depends,  —  then  the  fail- 
ing human  power  to  eat  and  drink  and  run  and 
laugh  and  sleep  and  whistle  and  sing,  is  the 
indication  of  a  failing  spiritual  power,  of  which 
these  are  but  the  signs.  He  is  a  full-orbed  man 
no  longer :  what  he  has  lost  is  but  a  shadow  of 
what  the  world  has  lost  in  him.  He  may  inten- 
sify as  he  becomes  unwell,  and  run  morbidly  to 
some  one  thing,  as  a  Strasburg  goose  runs  to 
liver,  —  may  become  notable  for  that  one  thing 
for  a  time,  among  men  as  morbid  as  himself. 
But  he  has  lost  the  most  celestial  thing,  in  try- 
ing to  create  the  more  material ;  as  Scott  lost 
the  power  to  write  books  like  "  Old  Mortality," 
in  the  morbid  desire  to  create  Abbotsford. 

I  do  not,  therefore,  ask  so  much  what  is  to  be 
the  result  of  any  waste  of  power  to  you ;  that 
is  your  own  business :  but  what  will  it  be  to 
your  home  and  the  world  at  large.  Out  of  your 
life  there  flows,  every  day,  some  spiritual  infhi- 


OMEGA.  311 

ence,  as  true  in  its  nature  and  degree  as  any 
ever  known.  You  may  never  write  a  book  or 
even  a  letter  ;  but  then  no  more  did  Jesus  Christ. 
No  mistake  can  be  greater  than  to  suppose,  that 
J  have  done  my  duty  by  my  home,  in  filling  it 
with  plenty ;  or  my  children,  in  securing  for 
them  the  best  teachers ;  or  that  I  have  been 
true  to  my  marriage  vow,  because  I  have  kept 
myself  pure,  and  never  stinted  my  wife  in  her 
expenses ;  or  to  Church  and  State,  because  I 
have  voted  right  on  election  day,  and  been,  in 
my  time,  a  deacon.  0  friend !  I  tell  you,  un- 
speakably more  than  this  is  that  mysterious  and 
most  holy  influence  of  a  sound,  elastic,  cheerful 
human  soul  in  a  body  to  match.  I  see,  once  in 
a  while,  a  home  in  which  I  am  just  as  sure  it  is 
impossible  for  the  children  to  go  radically  wrong, 
as  it  is  for  the  planet  to  turn  the  other  way  on 
her  axis.  The  whole  law  of  their  life,  of  their 
spiritual  gravitation,  is  fixed  by  the  strong,  sweet 
lather  and  mother;  resolute,  above  all,  to  pre- 
serve this  perfect  right  attraction,  though  there 
may  be  less,  at  last,  in  counted  dollars. 

I  have  seen  men  as  full  of  chivalric  and  loving 
attention   to  their  wives,  as  tender  and  thought- 


312  OMEGA. 

fi.il  and  delicate  as  in  the  old  courting  days, 
when  their  fate  still  hung  on  the  woman's  will. 
I  see  men  sometimes  in  society,  who  will  let  no 
pressure  of  business  or  care  crowd  them  so  that 
they  cannot  afford  time  for  sympathy,  and  to  give 
a  helping  hand  in  matters  that  are  above  the 
price  of  money,  giving  what  money  cannot  buy, 
—  the  light  and  life  of  an  unworn  nature.  And 
all  this  is  what  I  would  ask  most  urgently  in  my 
question,  Where  art  thou? 

Is  the  tide  of  success  in  your  profession  flood- 
ing out  your  home,  and  human  sympathies,  and 
excellences  ?  Have  you  less  time  for  a  thought- 
ful loving-kindness  toward  others  than  you  once 
had  ?  less  time  for  your  children,  to  chat  with 
them,  and  play  with  them,  and  tell  them  stories? 
less  time  to  give  to  your  wife,  who  has,  perhaps, 
been  waiting  all  day,  with  a  budget  of  things  to 
tell  you,  —  of  no  interest  to  you,  probably,  in  the 
abstract,  but  the  current  coin  of  her  little  domes- 
tic world  and  life. 

You  may  be  too  much  done  over  to  care  for 
any  of  these  things :  then  I  will  tell  you  what 
will  happen.  After  a  while,  your  children  will 
cease  to  tease  you,  or  your  wife  to  tell  you  what 


OMEGA.  313 

is  in  her  heart ;  and  a  cloud  will  settle  on  your 
home  and  its  life  you  cannot  account  for ;  the 
old  Eden  look  will  leave  it,  thorns  and  thistles 
will  spring  up  about  it;  every  thing  will  change 
to  your  altered  nature.  And  then,  instead  of 
looking  right  in  the  eyes  of  the  trouble,  and  try- 
ing to  amend  it.  you  will  do  what  this  first  man 
did  in  similar  circumstances,  —  turn  round  and 
blame  your  wife. 

Dear  friend,  whether  man  or  woman,  I  ask 
you,  as  we  part,  whether  you  have  kept  this  old 
wholesome  faith  in,  and  love  for,  the  life  that 
now  is  ;  because  I  really  know  of  no  way  so  sure 
to  the  loftiest  and  holiest  life  of  heaven,  as  that 
which  lies  directly  through  a  deep,  quick  sympa- 
thy with  the  life  on  earth.  When  we  lose  that, 
we  lose  what  the  sap  is  to  the  tree ;  the  mediator 
between  our  being  and  the  life  about  us  and  above 
us:  the  secret  of  all  our  growth  and  fruitfulness, 
as  of  all  our  glory  and  joy. 

And  I  have  said  not  a  word  to  the  hearers  of 
my  sermon  1  do  not  say  to  the  readers  of  my 
book. 

THE    END. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date,  stamped  below 


Form  L-9-15m-7,'32 


AA    001  188  912   8 


■ 


